


Not the Way to Go

by justkatherinetheokay



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: American History, American Politics, Basically, Canon Compliant, Capital Punishment, Charles is stuck in the middle, Disturbing Themes, Erik has problems, Gen, Holocaust, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Relationship, Rated T for language, Raven is becoming quite the manipulative chessmaster, and the above-mentioned disturbing themes, probably, sort of, this was never supposed to be fix-it but it kind of became fix-it a little bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-23
Updated: 2014-08-28
Packaged: 2018-02-10 01:33:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2005971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justkatherinetheokay/pseuds/justkatherinetheokay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 1977, the mutant terrorist calling himself Magneto is arrested again. Things look considerably more serious this time around, and for all they stand further apart in opposition than ever before, Charles can't really imagine a world without Erik. More importantly, he doesn't want to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Home

**Author's Note:**

> This one is more of a sequel to Where Were You When You Heard?, dealing with the repercussions more directly. Also makes reference to some stuff that happened in Far to Fall, though not as explicitly.

**Summer, 1977**

**Westchester**

  


Raven came home first. Once he got past the fact that she’d come at all, that she was the first was neither surprise nor disappointment—quite the opposite of the latter, in fact. Charles breathed a sigh of relief as soon as he felt her presence at the gates. Hank met her there. 

She just barely stepped in the doorway when he brought her up to Charles’ study. She was Mystique, every inch blue and redheaded and cool. They examined each other a moment from their opposite sides of the room, and indeed opposite sides of his desk until he wheeled around it to see her closer. Then the scales slipped away and Mystique became his Raven, blonde and no-nonsense but smiling, and Charles was sure he was dreaming as she approached him until the hug made it clearly real. 

“I was sort of hoping you’d have cut off this godawful mop by now.” Raven. She was Raven. She smiled as she said it, a wry smile, her voice a little sister’s soft mockery. 

“No such luck. I’m enjoying it while I can,” said Charles. “I am going to go bald eventually, you know.” 

“No, I don’t.” Raven frowned. “How do _you_ know that?” Charles smiled down at his legs. Even the chair couldn’t dampen this sudden good mood. Raven was here, Raven was calm, Raven wasn’t angry with him, and damned if he wasn’t going to do all it would take to keep things that way. 

“Long story.” He gestured at the guest chair nearest him. 

“O—okay.” Raven sat. The room was silent for a few moments as they regarded each other. “I see you haven’t opened your evening paper yet,” said Raven, breaking the tension. 

“It’s only seven. I’m getting to it.” Charles considered wheeling back around to sit behind his desk, but decided he would rather sit and face Raven as equals. 

“Well, you probably should.” Charles looked up to see her biting her lip. Even the nervous tic was delightful in its familiarity, but he pushed that aside for the moment. 

“All right.” He picked it up from where Hank had set it on his desk this morning and untied the twine around the rolled copy. It fell open across his lap to the headline he had spent the past four and a half years dreading, almost word-for-word. Somehow _arrested_ was much worse than the various stunts of vandalism and massacre he had spent those years trying his best to filter out. 

“Before you ask what happened, I have no idea,” said Raven quickly. “I wasn’t there, I’m not working with him, I haven’t, you _know_ I—never again. Not after Paris. But—” 

“Raven.” Charles held out a hand, and she quieted. “Of course I believe you. I can’t imagine why you would.” He skimmed the article. None of it looked good, though of course when it came to Erik _good_ was a little less than objective. “This is why you’re here, though?” He should have known there was a reason. Raven shook her head. 

“I just thought you ought to know,” she said. “No, I’m here because—well, because I wanted to see you, and give you some long-overdue thanks for what you did in DC, but more because I need to know if you can find someone. I don’t know if you still have Cerebro—” 

“Of course. We can go right away.” He began to wheel towards the door. Raven didn’t move. 

“It doesn’t have to be—don’t you—don’t you have a class to teach or something? I don’t want to be a burden—” 

“Believe me, Raven,” said Charles softly, “a visit from you is anything but a burden. And it’s summer,” he added. “School isn’t in session. The only students here are those without homes to go to. Or had you forgotten?” 

“Oh. Right.” At last she stood and followed as Charles made his way down to the lower floors. Raven walked behind him, looking around her curiously once they got below-ground and the carved wooden panels of their childhood gave way to sleek silvery plating. “Isn’t it some kind of liability to have so much of this place made of metal?” she asked. She sounded somewhat nervous. Charles wondered why, but didn’t dare read to find out. Even now he would hold to his promise. 

“Apparently not anymore.” 

“Oh—no, I meant—” 

“Perhaps.” Charles shrugged. “But I’ve never expected him to come back, and even if he did I doubt it would be to destroy my house.” Raven snorted. 

“No,” she said, “your house is probably pretty low on Erik’s list of things to destroy.” That wasn’t quite in line with Charles’ concept of the issue, but he didn’t disagree. 

“Welcome, Professor,” said the eerie female voice Hank had for some reason decided would be a good fit for Cerebro, as the lasers shone an _X_ —also very subtle—across his face and the round doors slid open. 

“Well,” said Raven, looking around as she followed him inside. “This is different. From before, I mean.” 

“It’s been fifteen years,” said Charles. “Technology has progressed.” 

“Of course. It’s much sleeker. Doesn’t look like the inside of a golf ball.” Charles chuckled at that, remembering, as he reached for the headpiece. Raven seized his shoulder what felt like compulsively as the lights faded out. 

“Don’t worry,” said Charles. “It’s just warming up. Now, who did you want me to find?” He felt her hesitate. “Raven?” 

“I’m not actually sure.” 

“Can you at least tell me an area? A name? A talent?” 

“I don’t—I don’t know, no. That is, he’ll be twelve, a mutant, and… try Kurt.” 

“Kurt?” Well, better that than Cain. “Is he in Germany?” 

“He might be in Bavaria,” said Raven. “That’s all I know. I’m sorry.” 

“It’s a start,” said Charles, and turned his focus on the red-tinted world of mutant constellations that swirled around him. 

It didn’t take long at all. Almost instantly his attention was drawn to a large, bright cluster of mutants just south of Munich, and there he found him. Kurt Wagner was a distinctive-looking boy, and though he decided not to prod if she was going to be secretive, Charles knew immediately why Raven had asked. It was night there, and he seemed contented as he slept in a tent beside two other children, a boy and a girl. 

“He looks well,” he said after he had indulged himself in a few more minutes of idly slipping around the circus camp, seeking out names and examining powers. Everyone seemed to feel quite safe and accepted, even those few with mutations even more dramatic than Kurt’s. For all he considered himself optimistic—at least in contrast to some he could name—Charles was still always surprised to find other places in the world where mutants were allowed to simply be mutants. It was a very pleasant thing to see. 

“Good,” said Raven, and Charles could feel the nervous energy of the walk down here sliding off her. He let Cerebro power down before removing the headpiece and wheeling back out with Raven close behind. 

“How do you know him?” he asked, to see what story she would tell. 

“I don’t,” said Raven a little wistfully. “I met him only once, shortly, when he was—very small—and his father’s long-dead, and I worry about him.” 

“I see.” Long-dead? He considered the boy’s appearance and made an educated guess at Azazel. That was one he wouldn’t have seen coming—but then, he’d barely known the man, had only ever touched his mind for an instant, and he didn’t know Raven at all in those years. 

“But he’s safe, and happy?” 

“Quite,” said Charles as they emerged back into the house proper. Raven smiled. 

“Good,” she said again. It had grown dark out while they were downstairs, and Cerebro was more taxing than Charles had recalled. 

“Would you like something to eat?” he asked, gesturing broadly in the direction of the kitchen. 

“That would be great,” said Raven, and followed him a bit further to get there. “I’ll make you hot cocoa,” she suggested dryly. Charles laughed. 

“It’s summer,” he said. “And we’re not ten years old anymore.” 

“No, nothing like it. Salad.” Raven opened the refrigerator to peer inside. Charles sat—not much else he could do, and he was rubbish at cooking these days for it, not that he’d ever been particularly reliable with anything more complicated than toast and tea—and watched the blonde girl who looked like his young, immature Raven act like the powerful, confident Mystique as she moved purposefully around the dark room. 

“You don’t have to look like that just for me, you know,” he said, surprising even himself a little. Raven’s shocked face appeared over the refrigerator door. 

“What?” 

“If it’s easier or more comfortable, you should be blue,” said Charles. “I wouldn’t mind.” 

“Oh,” said Raven softly. She disappeared behind the door again, and when she reemerged she was the Raven he remembered from the first time they had met in this room, almost thirty years ago now. How was that _possible_? Charles wondered for an instant—it didn’t feel that long—“I didn’t want to bring up any painful memories,” Raven told him. 

“Painful memories?” Charles smiled, shaking his head. “You? This? Never. The happy ones far outweigh the bad, my dear Raven, and those few I can easily handle.” 

“Oh,” said Raven again, and blinked a few times, suspiciously fast, before she turned back to the salads. 

“Besides, even if the bad were worse, it wouldn’t matter. It’s not as if I can ask _Magneto_ to change his face every time a reporter snaps a picture of him killing someone.” At the counter, Raven sighed. 

“No, I suppose not.” She set a plate before him. “Eat your vegetables, Charlie.” 

“If you call me that, Raven, I swear—” And there, they _were_ ten again. 

“They’re good for you,” said Raven rather flippantly, sitting down across the rickety old table from Charles. He barely glanced at his salad as he began to eat; it was hard to take his eyes off his sister, because it was hard to believe she was really here. 

“Will I ever find out where you’ve been the past decade and a half?” he asked. “Other than Paris, Washington, and apparently Germany.” 

“Maybe.” Raven shrugged. “If you really want to know, won’t you just look?” 

“Certainly not,” said Charles, surprised. “Have you forgotten? I promised you I’d never read your mind without permission.” 

“Oh.” Raven frowned. “You know, I think somewhere in there I _had_ forgotten.” 

“Well, I don’t break promises like that,” said Charles. 

“I remember now,” said Raven. “Thank you.” 

“Well, regardless of where you’ve been,” said Charles, turning back to his plate, “I’m glad you came home.” 

“You’d better be,” said Raven. “And I’m glad you’re glad. Unless I’ve forgotten everything, you’re a lot less of a prat when you’re feeling grateful.” 

“Prat? Raven, I’m nearly forty.” Well, barely thirty-nine, but as another man once said, it sounded better rounded. 

“You’ll be a prat at any age, Charles,” she said around a bite of lettuce. 

“And you’ll be a brat at any age. Don’t talk with your mouth full.” Raven rolled her eyes and swallowed before she spoke again. 

“There’s the Charles Xavier I remember.” 

“A little sadder, but sure.” Charles looked down at his plate. 

“Forty,” Raven mused later, back up in his study. “You don’t look it.” 

“No.” Charles laughed, not looking up from the paper he’d finally gotten around to reading properly. “I imagine I might look older.” 

“I’d say the opposite,” said Raven. “I mean, no one’s at _my_ level of lasting youthfulness, but all mutants age a bit slower, far as I can tell. And _you_ always had a baby face. Even with that stupid beard.” Charles glared at her to try to keep from smiling, but he couldn’t win. Laughter won out again. 

“I _feel_ older, some days,” he said when he sobered, turning back to the paper. “With everything.” 

“Don’t we all.” Raven sighed. “Speaking of, what are we going to do about Erik?” She gestured towards the paper in his lap. 

“What?” Charles’ head snapped up in surprise. “What is there to do? He’s been arrested. He’ll go back to prison. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a good thing.” 

“I disagree on both counts,” said Raven. 

“Both?” Charles raised his eyebrows. “Well, politics aside, why don’t you think he’ll go back to prison?” 

“They won’t put him there again,” she said. “Not this time. This will be a bit much for that.” Charles frowned. 

“Well, then, what do you think will happen?” 

“I think the government’ll seek the death penalty,” she said, like it was most casual thing in the world. Charles’ stomach turned. He set his paper aside. 

“Why?” 

“Because they _can_.” Raven shrugged. “They couldn’t when they had him for killing the president, but they can now.” 

“Why didn’t they?” Charles wondered aloud. He’d never thought about it, but now he did it was rather an obvious question. Of all the things the government held executions for— 

“I figure it was because they were still trying to keep secret the fact that we exist,” said Raven, “and it just would have complicated that investigation further.” 

“I must admit to being a little distracted back then,” said Charles. 

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” said Raven. “Me, I’m _sure_ the FBI had something to do with it. That fucker Hoover hated mutants, and their investigation was more than a little suspect. Of course, hating mutants, you’d think he’d have been desperate to see Erik dead,” she mused. “Hated mutants, hated homosexuals—” 

“Right,” said Charles, suddenly uncomfortable. “Yes, I paid attention to COINTELPRO, Raven, I know that much.” 

“Right. Sorry.” She sighed. “Also, none of the methods they had then would work. Electrocution’s definitely out, and firing squad and gas chamber would take a lot of modification to—Charles?” She said gas chamber, and suddenly Charles couldn’t breathe, gripping his armrests, doubling over in his chair. He couldn’t find the words to describe how horrible, and on how many levels, that would— 

“Charles?” 

“I’m fine.” He blinked awake. “I’m fine.” Other than quite queasy, overheated, and increasingly clammy. 

“You fainted,” said Raven. She was kneeling before him, looking terribly concerned. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—” 

“Can we talk about something else?” Charles asked weakly. “Look, Raven, let him stand trial first. If they do put him on death row, _then_ we should figure something out. But I’m not convinced that they will.” 

“Of course they will,” said Raven, sitting back, confidently cynical. “They’ll want to make an example of the great Magneto, and the longer we wait—” 

“We can talk about it tomorrow,” Charles interrupted. “In the mean time, could I have some ice? I don’t feel terribly well.” 

“Can’t imagine you do.” Raven stood and pressed her hand to his forehead with a frown. “Yeah, I’m going to get Hank. He’s better at medical stuff than me.” 

“Thank you,” said Charles to her retreating back. “Your old room’s just as you left it.” Raven paused in the doorway. 

“Thank you,” she said, sounding sincerely touched. “Good night, Charles.” 

“Good night.” 

Lying in his own bed, Charles found himself asleep almost immediately. His dreams were memories not his own, of iron gates and shuffling lines of starving, broken people being prodded on towards their deaths, and some small, lucid part of his brain hoped to god he wasn’t projecting, when the reason he could dream this dream, lying in this bed, was that Erik always had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoover in this case is not the man who Presided over the stock market crash, but J. Edgar, the man who ran the FBI with an iron fist for the better (and more turbulent) part of the 20th century. He was beloved in life, but after his death and with some progress in our politics he's better known for his hatred of Communists and minorities. He died in 1972, but I figure before that the long list of minorities he kept an eye on HAD to include mutants.
> 
> COINTELPRO stands for Counter Intelligence Program, a far-reaching and seriously shady program under Hoover that targeted mostly anti-war and civil rights activists (including Martin Luther King !!!). It was uncovered in 1971 by the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI, who were basically some of the first whistleblowers in American politics after they broke into an FBI field office in Media, PA and released the documents they uncovered to the press. If you've been reading my X-Men fic so far you know I routinely put a bunch of research into this stuff, but this I actually know because a married couple involved in the burglary are old family friends and when they finally came out of hiding this year it caused huge shock waves (heh) in my grandparents' old proper rich white people social circle. Being young and progressive and thinking about going into law or politics, I think they were amazingly badass, and I'd been waiting for a way to work this in somewhere.
> 
> I think those are all the historical notes I need for this chapter.
> 
> Also, Hoover was quite possibly gay, but the society-wide homophobia of his lifetime clearly went heavily internalized, so gay rights groups and non-straight people in general were among those he really cracked down on.
> 
> And Charles' reaction to the various options for execution was about what mine might have been if I hadn't stopped reading.


	2. Gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Old friends check in on old friends, and Charles clearly wasn't paying attention to the corners of the world where he should have been looking.

**Winter, 1977  
**

**Westlawn Cemetery, Norridge, Illinois**

  


The little brown headstone seemed somehow perfectly appropriate for the man Erik remembered. A part of him hated that it wasn’t covered in flowers and attended by people paying their respects—the man who avenged the President against the humans should be _celebrated!_ —but just the same he was glad he could stand here alone and unmolested to pay Jack Ruby his own. 

“Took you ten years, Erik?” said a familiar voice from behind him. “Gotta say, I’m a little offended.” Erik turned slowly around to look into an equally familiar face. For a moment it was very difficult to keep his face impassive as usual. 

_Many strange things exist in the world, Erik. Ghosts are not one of them._ And more importantly, that wristwatch was definitely not made of metal. 

“What was his power, anyway?” said the Ruby simile before him. “You never said.” 

“Healing,” he said coldly. “A lot of good it did him in the end. Trask helped the government turn the cell regrowth in on itself. Have a little respect for the dead, would you?” A smooth slide of blue scales later, and there was Emma. “I _said_ —” 

“I’m not dead, Erik,” said Mystique coolly in the telepath’s usual hard, sweet, surrounded-by-idiots tone. “The Prism got destroyed, but I’m out there somewhere. I’m just not with _you_.” Erik glared at her a moment longer, and another blue slide gave way to the sweetest of blue eyes— 

“Oh, fuck you.” Erik turned away again. 

“Better that than kill me,” said Mystique in his ear, in her own voice, as a gun—plastic, _damn_ it—was pressed against what felt like a cruelly specific spot on his spine. “Let’s agree first off, _that’s_ not happening again. Okay?” 

“What are you doing here?” Erik asked shortly. The safety clicked off. 

_“Okay?”_

“Of course I’m not going to kill you,” Erik snapped. “There’s no purpose anymore.” 

“I don’t like that rationale, but I’ll let it slide for the moment.” The gun went away. Erik exhaled. 

“What are you doing here?” he repeated. 

“Just wanted to say hello,” said Mystique conversationally. “Why don’t you come with me?” 

“Go with you where?” Erik asked, even as they began to walk back towards the cemetery gates. When he glanced down, she was Raven, of course, though with dark hair today. 

“There.” She nodded towards a bar across the street. Erik sighed. 

“Fine.” 

“I just want to talk,” said Mystique. “Haven’t seen you in years, Erik. It’s about time we talked things out a little.” 

“What did you want to talk about?” said Erik once he had a poor excuse for beer before him in the dark corner booth Mystique had snatched. 

“Things.” She shrugged. “I want to see where we stand. Any big plans for the near future?” 

“As if I’d tell you.” Though the ‘beer’ wasn’t _that_ terrible, once you got used to it. He drained it. 

“Yeah, I sort of figured.” She flashed him a familiar, sarcastic grin. “Let’s see if I can guess.” 

“Let’s not,” said Erik, standing. “Good day.” Once again, out came the plastic gun. He sighed and fell back to the seat. 

“If I guess right, you buy this round,” said Mystique. “If I get it wrong, I buy.” 

“Fine,” said Erik through gritted teeth. He barely had any money anyway. Four drinks later, and her surprisingly substantially poorer, he was feeling a little hazy going into the next round. Not exactly a shocker—Magneto didn’t drink as a general rule, so it had been a long time, and a long time abstaining had put a definite downgrade on his tolerance. Those nine years in the ground hadn’t helped either. Mystique leaned across the table, looking at him searchingly, as if she could see through his eyes and into his soul. 

_She realizes she’s not Charles, right?_

Alcohol was clearly an awful thing these days, if it made him think thoughts like that. 

“Hmm.” Mystique ran a finger around the rim of her empty bottle. Erik wondered if her mutation gave her some kind of crazy tolerance—did that constantly-shifting DNA keep the blood alcohol low? Or perhaps she was just used to this. “I think,” she said slowly, “that next… Next, let’s see, you’re probably going to—um—huh. I know! You’re going to go to Paris with my brother and a guy from the future and try to murder an old friend for no real reason.” Erik groaned, letting his head fall into his hands, massaging his temples. 

“Ugh. No. I’m _sorry_ , all right?” At that, Mystique stood up. 

“There we go,” she said. “We’re done here.” Erik looked up. 

“Wait—no—what the _fuck_?” 

“That’s all I wanted.” Mystique shrugged, smiling a little smugly. “An apology. We’re done here.” 

“You got me drunk so I would _apologize_?” Erik asked. He would have snapped it, except snapping would have been pretty hard right now. 

“Yeah, and it went a lot faster than I was hoping, too,” said Mystique. “Which isn’t what I remembered from you, but whatever.” Erik rolled his eyes. 

“Well, it’s been a while since me and alcohol were this close,” he said as dryly as he could. “As someone else once said. Or something.” 

“You never were subtle when you were drunk.” 

“I never used to _get_ drunk.” 

Not with you. 

“Oh, right,” said Mystique, “that wasn’t you. That was Charles.” 

That wasn’t you. That was Charles. 

She _was_ perfectly sober, Erik realized. And now she was using it to kick him while she had him rather literally cornered. Some part of him knew he probably deserved it, but that part was currently a little soaked in alcohol. 

“That was a lot of money wasted on an apology I would have given you sober,” Erik called after her as she walked away. The bar was fairly empty, and the phrase was innocuous. Mystique stopped at that, and turned back. 

“Seriously?” But she didn’t look particularly angry. She just shrugged. “That’s very gratifying, Erik. But this way was more fun.” 

  


**Summer**

**Westchester**

  


Charles jerked awake from those horrible dreams before the sun was up, which concerned him a little considering it was summer. Still, once conscious, he always found he simply couldn’t fall back asleep properly. 

The house was silent, all the other resident minds sleeping at ease as they neared waking. Pete was in the midst of a very curious dream involving a cat, but other than that the world here was silent to Charles. This was always such a pleasant time of day, with the quiet. It would be quiet a while longer, too—aside from him, Hank, and Raven, after all, this was a house of teenagers. Not a group generally known as morning people, especially not now, in the middle of summer. 

It was even quieter in the basement. A lovely quiet, cold and solitary, just Charles and that otherworldly voice welcoming him to Cerebro. Charles wheeled his way to the platform at the centre, where he sat and listened to the inside of the sphere hum softly as the machine warmed up. Then he put on the headpiece and let the people swirl around him like red stars as he decided who to check on first. 

The Maximoffs, home from college for the summer down in Alexandria, were as much young people as any of those here, still sleeping at this early hour. Charles watched them for a moment with some affection, careful to keep his touch light for fear of waking, or worse, hurting them. There was nothing in them to remind him of their father—they were very much their own mutants. The boy had been irritating in person—now he knew she was there, Charles would almost have rather had his twin along—but there was something endearing about him nonetheless, especially from a distance. 

Irritating, but endearing. Perhaps there was a little resemblance after all. He left them to sleep, darting around the world for someone else to check in on. 

He could—no. Not yet. Not two in a row. 

In Hawaii, poor Alex was up at one in the morning with a very fussy baby. By now Charles was fairly certain that the Scott that Logan had said to look out for was the Summers baby. He was curious to see how Alex’s mutation would manifest in his son’s phenotype as he grew, but for now he contented himself with watching his friend soothe the infant back to sleep. The man Charles had met as a reckless eighteen-year-old delinquent had grown up into a surprisingly good father. 

He checked on Moira twice, as he always did, just to see how she was getting on. Presently how she was getting on was with coffee in a DC café—nothing dangerous or important, so he left to cast around aimlessly for a while, putting it off as long as he could. Then, finally, steeling himself for the pain, Charles made his way over to Lorna. 

In Chicago—barely 5 AM, Charles had to laugh a little—the toddler was wide awake, cheerful, and bored to the point of hazard. Lorna was an early bloomer as mutants went, and what she found to do, as he watched, was to creep downstairs and make a game out of bouncing around the kitchen from appliance to appliance. When her mother came in to see what on earth the child was doing now, it was to find her sitting cross-legged and perfectly calm on top of the refrigerator. The poor woman screamed. 

Lorna Dane was a sweet child, but watching her hurt. Charles flung himself back out into the galaxy of minds. That cluster in Germany glowed bright, and he recalled that he had another child to check on now. 

Kurt Wagner sat at a big communal table in a circus tent, giggling with the friends from last night, his roommates—or foster-siblings? Yes, that seemed to be it—over lunch. 

“Zeigen!” the girl giggled. The blue boy glanced around slyly, tail moving in tandem with his head, before he vanished in a puff of blue smoke only to reappear with a _bamf_ in the empty spot opposite where he had started out. If any of the adults in the tent noticed, they didn’t comment or didn’t care. The little girl pouted, and Raven’s son reversed the move so he sat by her again. She clapped in delight. 

His father _was_ Azazel, then. Charles wasn’t certain how powers were passed down—there really wasn’t enough data, as so few of them had reproduced yet—but he thought this rather clinched it. Azazel. He decided to set aside his continued confusion at that, and instead watched his—nephew, good god, he was, wasn’t he? Charles had never thought to have a nephew—pick up a conversation with the other children in rapid, fluent, unintelligible German on a level Charles had only ever heard from within a certain mind, long ago. 

He watched for a few minutes more before he rolled back and let Cerebro power down. Upstairs, the house was beginning to awaken. Mind already relaxed, Charles idly sought around for the students. The young minds moved sluggishly, emerging into consciousness one at a time in their different rooms above him as he wheeled down the main hall of the house. 

At the end of that hall was a wide bay window overlooking the grounds. From here Charles could see out over the low stone wall to the trees, and far beyond, the enormous satellite. The gravel path ran along the ground just outside the window. Far off to the left was Hank’s laboratory, and beyond it, the bunker and the underground hangar. Something over there caught Charles’ eye. 

The lab door hung open, and inside, all the lights appeared to be on. That was decidedly strange. Hank hadn’t been a teenager for a long time, and compared to everyone but Charles he was an early riser, but he still slept in the extra hour to seven during the summer. 

When he turned his thoughts to the floor above his head—Hank’s room, here at the end of the house where teachers lived—the room was empty. Charles frowned. So was Raven’s. 

“Hank?” Charles called as soon as he got within shouting distance of the lab. Beyond the doors, something crashed. Hank swore. 

“Professor!” He appeared in the doorway, a suspiciously cheerful smile plastered across his face. “Hey. Um—hi. Good morning. How are you today?” 

“A bit curious to see you up so early,” said Charles. “Something wrong?” Hank laughed nervously and ran a hand through his hair. 

“No,” he said. “No, no, not at all, everything’s—wait!” Charles had tried to wheel in the door. “Wait, wait, um, you can’t—” 

“Oh?” Charles frowned. “And why not?” 

“Um—” A long, awkward pause. 

“My sister isn’t naked in there, is she?” Charles asked, struck by a rather unfortunate fifteen-year-old memory. Hank blinked. 

“No, no, Raven’s not here,” he said, shaking his head hurriedly. “She—um—well, it’s a funny story, really—” 

“Hank.” Charles sighed. “What happened?” 

“I—” Hank sighed, stepping aside. “All right. Yeah, come in. You should—just keep in mind, Professor—this was not my idea. It was hers. Her plan. And she didn’t give me much of a choice, she, um—” Charles wheeled along down the centre of the lab, towards a cot where a large, human-shaped grey lump was sprawled. Charles frowned, prodding at it with his mind. The one there was sluggish, but something felt— “He’s—” Hank followed him, talking fast, nervous. “I sedated him—I figured it was the best—” The lump groaned in familiar low tones. Charles stopped dead. 

“You did _not_ ,” he said. “Good God, Hank, _tell_ me you didn’t—” the lump rolled over, frowned, and grey eyes blinked. 

“Charles?” Erik slurred. Charles looked at Hank, who shrugged helplessly. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“Where’s Raven?” Charles asked sharply. Hank winced. 

“Washington.” 

“Washington?” 

“Um. She’s—well, she’s in the prison. Under the—” 

“Oh, bloody hell—”

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jack Ruby was the man who killed the man who killed JFK. His shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald as the prisoner was being transferred was the first murder ever aired on national television (entirely by accident, of course). He was on death row for the murder, but died of cancer in the middle of trying to appeal it early in 1967. And if Magneto was involved in the JFK assassination in the way he claimed to be, it falls to reason that he and Ruby were maybe on the same side.
> 
> No historical notes other than that, except that I like to think Quicksilver's little sister in Days of Future Past wasn't Scarlet Witch, just... I don't know, their little (half) sister, and that Wanda was off somewhere else in 1973 being a more skeptical and law-abiding teenager of the kind who couldn't be convinced to break a high-security prisoner out of the Pentagon just to prove it could be done. So here I have the Maximoffs as twins. 
> 
> Also, because it wouldn't make sense to have Alex and Scott still be brothers in the movie timeline, at some point the screenwriters said Scott was Alex's son in this universe. 
> 
> And Lorna was born sometime in late '73 or '74. Because Erik obviously gets around.


	3. Reason

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damn it, Raven.

“The guards never knew any different,” Hank explained. Sitting in front of Charles’ desk, he looked like nothing so much as a student again. In this case, a student tattling in the hopes of avoiding a tougher punishment. “It was a lot smoother than when we did it back in ’73. I guess that’s the benefit of having a shapeshifter and a functional telepath running the show, instead of—” he cut himself off then. Charles raised his eyebrows. 

“Instead of?” 

“A wolverine, a juvenile delinquent and a—well, a bitter, powerless telepath,” Hank finished sheepishly. Charles sighed. 

“Right. So—wait, a functional telepath?” he asked, as it occurred to him to wonder. “Who?” He hadn’t come across another in years, not since— 

“Emma Frost,” said Hank, as if it should be obvious. 

“Emma Frost is dead!” 

“According to whom?” 

“Erik!” 

“When did he tell you that?” 

“On the plane to Paris!” 

“You mean when he was having his, um, temper—issue?” said Hank doubtfully. 

“I believe the word you’re looking for is _tantrum_ , Hank.” 

“He’d been in prison for nine years, Professor,” Hank pointed out. “I can’t imagine he had what you and I would call reliable sources. All I know is that the diamond woman brought him out and delivered him to me.” 

“And Raven’s inside,” said Charles. “Raven… rescued Erik. Raven went to get him. Why?” 

“Search me.” Hank shrugged. Charles raised an eyebrow. 

“Is that an invitation?” 

“I suppose so,” said Hank uncertainly. “You know, if—if that would make things a little clearer.” Charles sighed and leaned across the desk, offering his hand. Hank bent his head down to meet Charles’ outstretched fingers, and Charles closed his eyes and searched. 

_“Why?” Hank asked suspiciously when Raven asked to borrow the jet._

_“I need to fly to Washington.”_

_“All right, but_ why _?”_

_“To break Erik out of prison,” said Raven calmly. He was rather surprised to find her so blasé about those intentions._

_“Does the Professor know about this?”_

_“We discussed the matter,” said Raven lightly._

Not _technically_ untrue, Charles thought, and felt, in response, a small burst of dry mirth in Hank’s thoughts. 

_“Did you reach an agreement?”_

_“Not exactly.” Raven gave him her sweetest smile._ Charles didn’t need to hear Hank’s thoughts at the sight of it, so he ducked out for a moment. 

_“Then you can’t borrow the jet.”_

_“Sure I can. I mean, will you really stop me?” She had him there._

_“What’s your endgame?” Hank asked once they were in the air. Raven, in the copilot’s seat, shrugged._

_“He needs to live,” she said. “Without him, we have no one.”_

_“We have—”_

_“Charles. Yeah.” Raven rolled her eyes. “Look, I don’t agree with his methods, but Magneto is still the only mutant actively working for other mutants, in the public eye. If they make an example of him, it’ll just scare off anyone else who might have come forward.”_

_“You don’t know that they will,” said Hank. “And the Professor is—”_

_“For some reason beyond my comprehension, still trying to pass under the radar,” Raven finished smoothly. “You all are. And I think it’s really stupid and cowardly of you,” she added. “You two especially. You’re probably the two most highly-educated mutants on the planet, Hank, either one of you could have a lot of credibility if you’d just_ leave the house _, and instead you’re sitting around—” she paused—“sorry, bad choice of words—teaching twelve-year-olds how to act normal. That’s not what we need, Hank.”_

_“Neither is Magneto,” said Hank, once he recovered from a moment’s stunned silence._

_“Yeah, but for the moment he’s all we’ve got,” said Raven, and they didn’t speak again until she was leaving him behind in the field she had pointed him towards at two in the morning._

_“Be careful,” said Hank. “I assume you’re going to want me to take him somewhere else, too, once he’s out?”_

_“Just take him back to the school,” Raven told him. She was just full of surprises tonight. “I know they don’t get along, but at least I trust him and Charles not to kill each other.”_

_“To say they ‘don’t get along’ might be putting it a bit lightly,” said Hank doubtfully. Raven shrugged._

_“Maybe, but I can’t think of anyone else who can handle him as well.” And with that, she turned and walked away._

“Damn it, Raven,” said Charles aloud, especially because, after all, she was right. 

_Raven’s next surprise of the night came when she didn’t actually come back at all. Instead, within an hour, a faintly familiar blonde woman drove up in a white Rolls Royce that was really anything but inconspicuous. She got out and dragged a sedated Erik over to where Hank was waiting._

_“Do I know you?” said Hank._

_“Probably not,” said the woman,_ who, looking in, Charles clearly recognized as Emma, though at this point in the memory Hank hadn’t yet. 

_“Should I?” he asked. She looked him up and down._

_“Probably not.”_

_“Where’s Raven?” he asked. The woman’s face curved into a smirk._

_“Mystique? She didn’t tell you? Guess you’re just the valet after all.” She dumped her charge onto him rather unceremoniously. Erik grumbled unintelligibly as Hank stumbled for a moment under his weight. “She’s staying down there. She replaced him.”_

_“How did you—?” his head filled with a horrible high-pitched buzzing, like glass shattering over and over at high speed. Hank swayed on his feet as images poured in too fast for him to quite comprehend an order—the white prison, a brief moment of appreciation for the aesthetics (Emma was glad to see the US Government had style, though of course they had for decades—hadn’t Teddy Roosevelt had that Great White Fleet or something?), then Raven delivering food, Emma close behind but invisible to the guards, Emma cutting through the center of the glass, Raven becoming Erik, Erik looking very, very confused until a hypodermic needle found its way into his arm and his eyes rolled up into his head, Emma replacing the glass over Raven and dragging Erik out unnoticed by the guards, and now they were here—_

_Here, in the field, as Hank stumbled back, Erik fell all the way to the ground with a thud and a very unhappy groan._

_“There’s more than one telepath in the world, sweetie,” said the woman in white as she turned to go. “And it’s Emma, not that I imagine you’ll ever need to remember that.”_

_It was a hell of a job getting Erik into the plane after that. Thank god he was so skinny. It was a little harder getting his own mind clear enough to fly, but after a few minutes and a shift to blue and back Hank managed it._

_That’s it up to now._ Charles pulled back into his own mind, where he had to simply lean over his desk with his head in his hands for a few minutes to process it all. 

“I never knew she was that devious,” said Hank. _I kind of like it,_ added his brain, unusually loud for the moment while the detachment was still fresh. Minds did that, like they were trying to cling to Charles for a little while even after he left them. They faded eventually, for the most part, some faster than others, usually related to the duration of the connection. Only one mind had never faded yet. 

Erik’s mind was always very loud. It probably always would be. Even with him under sedatives—at least, he hoped the sedatives were still working—Charles could still feel Erik’s mind from here. He was never sure how much of that was the old connections, like—well, like a pair of magnets, still polarized to reach for each other as soon as one brought them close enough—and how much of it was just Erik being… Erik. His mind had always been at least relatively loud; Charles just had no way to tell how much that volume might have increased over the years. 

“No, indeed,” he murmured, turning over Raven’s stated motives in his thoughts, examining them from all angles. She had a point. She always did, was the thing, she and Erik both, but this time Charles found it unusually difficult to deny her logic. Unless he really wanted to delude himself, it was very true that, in the end, Magneto _was_ the most visible representative for mutants to the rest of humanity. Perhaps even the only one. Mystique played her part, certainly, but her powers necessitated a less flashy role for her in public affairs. She certainly didn’t have a stupid mauve cape. _Such_ a stupid mauve cape. For a moment Charles almost smiled fondly down at his desk at the thought of that collossally stupid mauve cape. 

“Professor?” said Hank hesitantly. Charles looked up. “Um—now you know everything I know, do you actually still need me? Because those restraints weren’t actually very strong, and there’s a lot of metal in the lab, and if you don’t need me here I’d rather like to go make sure he’s still, um, sedated.” 

“Oh—yes, of course, go ahead.” Charles waved him towards the door. “Go on. You’re right, I—I ought to think things over alone for a while.” He glanced up again to see Hank pause in the doorway. 

“Charles,” he said, and Charles sat back in his chair, a little shocked. He had told Hank that they were very much equals, and the use of his given name would certainly be appropriate at this point in their shared lives and careers, but the address was still unusual coming from the man who had been, in a way, his first student. “Raven—she never said it out loud, so you wouldn’t have noticed it when you were in my mind, but I was thinking on the way back—I think everything she said is true, I think that those _are_ her reasons, the political part, but I also think she wanted me to bring him to you so that maybe you could—I don’t know, patch things up? Or something.” He shuffled his feet and looked down, taking on the posture of a troublesome child again. “Just—just something to consider.” Charles blinked. 

“All right,” was all he could find to say to that. Hank vanished, headed for the lab, and Charles let his head fall into his hands again. 

Raven, _why?_

And now she was in the prison designed for Erik. Looking like Erik. Erik, who she was certain would soon be sentenced to death. 

Raven could get out of being executed if it came to it, Charles thought—probably. The idea still made him very uneasy. Better to get her out beforehand— 

_Oh._ So that was her endgame. To have them both out. That was why she had come here at all before going ahead with her plan—well, to get the jet, certainly, but that was just an extra convenience, really. Emma could have taken him somewhere just as well as Hank could, if not quite as fast or as amiably. What she needed from her visit to Westchester was Charles, because while Charles wouldn’t lift a finger to save Erik from prison if he didn’t have an angry man twice his size and with claws to boot growling in his face that it was imperative to do so, he had proven before—then, in fact—that he would go to great lengths to save _Raven_. 

Her behavior yesterday had still been real, he consoled himself. He never read her mind, but she still projected as a fairly normal part of her interactions with him, and never once had he felt guile from her. Just affection and concern. 

Yes, the emotion was genuine; she just also happened to be using that genuine emotion to manipulate him. That trick she had to have picked up—if not _from_ Erik, then almost certainly from watching him. How to Play Charles Xavier to Achieve Your Own Ends In the Knowledge That He Loves You. 

He wondered if he should be furious. Sometime in the future, perhaps he would be. Right now he was too concerned, and the entire situation felt too well and fucked. 

Raven should have been so much more than a waitress, back when they were young—she could have done so much with those brains, if he had only given her the chance to use them properly—and Charles hated himself for taking this long to figure it out. 

All the more reason to get her out: to apologize. 

  


“Ha. Who’s an adorable lab rat now?” 

“Oh, shut up,” said Erik, rather amiably, considering. Charles smirked. It had been five years since Hank had made a serum for anyone but himself, but he had managed to whip one up for Erik in just two days. Sometimes, Charles kept hearing from the scientist’s rather smug mind, he impressed even himself. “This is truly awful,” he added, his tone darkening. “I can’t imagine how you did this for a matter of _years_. Surely you noticed how it dulls the mind, too?” _Your phrases are getting formal, my friend._ Charles said nothing aloud, only watched Erik’s fingers convulse towards the chess pieces, for nothing to happen. “Don’t you scheißkerlen trust me at all?” There, that was the Erik Lehnsherr he remembered. 

“After you managed to land yourself in prison again? I should think not.” 

“At least in prison all they did was remove my access to metal. They didn’t block my powers and then set the metal right before my eyes to tantalize me.” Oddly, he didn’t sound particularly irritable as he said it—not even bitter. His voice was almost a monotone. 

“Are you honestly calling _me_ inhumane, Erik?” Charles prodded lightly. That didn’t get nearly the reaction he had hoped for, just a heavy sigh and a rather sad glance. “Do you want to play?” Charles added, nodding toward the chessboard. 

“I guess, if you want.” He sounded exhausted. That would take all the sport out of it. 

“Perhaps tomorrow,” said Charles. “I suspect you might be rather too easy to beat when you’re like this.” Erik just looked at him, his face blank, his jaw set, his eyes somewhere between hard and mournful. 

“Fine,” he said, a flat syllable without much in the way of inflection. Hank wandered in at that moment to turn on the television; the children had been chaperoned off to the town cinema by some of the older students to see that _Star Wars_ thing for what must have been the fifth time, at his suggestion. Charles rather thought Hank was desperate to keep them out of the house as much as possible while Erik was around. 

“Hey, they’ve scheduled your trial,” he said now, glancing up at them from where he sat by the television. “Two months from now. You’re supposed to meet with your lawyer next week.” 

“Next week?” said Charles. That certainly limited their timeframe. “Erik, I assume you don’t want Raven talking to your lawyer?” 

“I’d almost like to watch it,” said Erik dryly. He seemed to have perked up a little since Hank came in. “Mystique versus whatever bigoted arschloch they appoint to represent me. One hell of a spectator sport.” Charles raised his eyebrows. “But no,” Erik added, “no, on the whole I’d rather she didn’t.” 

“Then we need to get her out,” Charles decided. “Fast.” 

“So you can put me back in?” A return to the monotone. 

“Of course not,” said Charles. “So that neither of you are trapped down there, of course. Unless you want to go back.” Erik gave him a look, then turned his gaze away. “All right, then.” 

“You had nothing to do with getting me out, you know,” said Erik, still not looking at him. “You didn’t want to do it in the first place. Don’t act like you did.” 

“I wasn’t.” 

“But now that it’s Mystique,” Erik continued, as if he hadn’t heard, “you’re ever so eager to get her out. Why?” 

“Raven’s my sister,” said Charles, surprised. “Regardless of what she may or may not have done in the years since we were close, I love her.” Erik snapped back to stare at him for a very long pause. His expression went unchanged, but his eyes looked almost hurt. 

“Right,” he finally said. “Well, I’ll leave you two to the planning. I don’t imagine you want notorious mutant terrorist Magneto in on the master plan, do you?” And without another word he stood and stalked out of the room. 

“Touchy,” said Hank. 

“It’s probably the serum.” Charles sighed. “He’ll get used to not having his powers. It can be a little jarring at first, for those of us with strictly psychic mutations. Much though I personally welcomed it, I still remember the transition.” 

“Right. I’m sure that’s it.” Hank sounded unconvinced, but for the moment he seemed to sense that pressing the issue would be a poor choice. Clever fellow. “So. How the _hell_ are we going to break Raven out of prison?” Charles considered it for a moment. Surely Raven had some contingency plan. There was certainly no way she meant to be stuck beneath the Pentagon permanently. 

He thought back to her visit, and it came to him clear as day. 

“Oh, it’ll be easy, once we get there,” he said. “But between now and then, you’ve got a lot of flying ahead of you.”

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Great White Fleet was a US Naval fleet that circumnavigated the world as a demonstration of American power and international dominance. Somewhat surprisingly, this was not a 21st century development; this happened between 1907 and 1909. They painted the ships white because it was peacetime and (according to my US History teacher) just because they had a lot of white paint. 
> 
> Star Wars (the film now known as A New Hope) was released on May 25, 1977, and quickly became an international phenomenon. 
> 
> (On a scale from Star Wars to X-Men, how good is any given prequel trilogy? And more importantly, on the same scale, how homoerotic are the writers willing to let it become?)


	4. Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erik visits old haunts, some of which haunt him far more than he ever did them.

**Westchester**

  


The boy was still in Bavaria, though the circus had moved a little ways north. On tour, perhaps. That might complicate things, but Charles couldn’t really see what else they could do at this point. Emma Frost had her own strong barriers against Cerebro, and he wasn’t going to drag Peter Maximoff back into this sort of illegal business, not when he was doing so well these days. 

“Where are you going?” said Erik. In an earlier time, when his legs worked, Charles would have jumped out of his skin. Now he simply wheeled around to see Erik leaning on the open doorframe, watching him pack. It seemed he had found the clothes that had spent the past fifteen years sitting in a drawer, untouched, in the next room over; he was back to a black turtleneck and slacks, making him a lean, dark line against the light from the hall. His mind was calmer than it had been. 

“To retrieve someone who can help us,” Charles replied after a moment’s consideration as to phrasing. “Hank and I will be gone for a day or two.” 

“And where will you be leaving me?” Erik asked. “I don’t imagine you’ll trust me with what little freedom I have now, once you’re not around to keep an eye on me.” 

“No, indeed,” said Charles coolly. “You’ll be dosed and sedated in the bunker while we’re away. Minimum damage.” 

“To me, or the house?” 

“What do you think?” 

“Right.” Erik looked at the floor, face unreadable. Tentatively, Charles reached out towards his mind. Erik’s head snapped back up at the touch. “You keep out of here,” he said, cold and flat. 

“Sorry.” He was still so loud, like the id was trying to pull Charles in even as the ego projected angry warnings. They remained in silence for a moment, while Erik mentally cursed him in several languages at once ( _trottel, cabrón, connard, lügner, verräter, herzenbrecher_ ) and Charles sought around beneath for another glimpse of a subconscious longing that seemed to have vanished as quickly as it appeared. Then even the cursing cut off, leaving a resounding silence. It was as if a barrier had been thrown up, like— 

Like the helmet. It felt like the helmet. In the beginning, the helmet had been just a foreign sensation, rather an annoyance—he wasn’t used to barriers, after all—but by now, with everything, it felt much more violent than that. As if the metal was actively, malevolently, pushing him out. Charles hated the helmet. When he glanced into Erik’s eyes, it was enough to see that he knew that. He looked away again. 

“If you mean to lock me up while you’re gone,” said Erik, clearly to change the subject, “would you at least do me the favor of telling me where you’ll be jaunting off to?” Charles was still rather thrown, and didn’t realize he let it slip until it was out. 

“Bavaria. A bit northeast of Munich.” _Oops._ Erik raised a single eyebrow. Charles tried not to let it send a shiver down his spine. 

“Really,” said Erik. “Remind me, mein Freund, how much German do you know?” _Mein Freund_. Those two words grated at him like nothing else. 

“Enough of the basics to get by,” said Charles through gritted teeth. This was why he hadn’t wanted to tell Erik. Now he was going to have to deal with— 

“Did you consider, perhaps, taking along the _native_ German, before you decided instead to lock him in the basement?” On the broad, ideological scale where their disagreements usually operated, Erik’s logic was routinely a tangled mess of fallacies and hypocrisy, but in this case, his was exactly the argument Charles had deliberately avoided considering. Erik sighed. “Right.” 

“You’re not going, Erik.” 

“Why not?” 

“We’re going to collect a child,” said Charles, finally turning away again, “and I don’t want you near him.” 

“A child?” said Erik. “In Bavaria?” 

“What, worried he might be yours?” Charles asked irritably. 

“Not possible, but I am curious as to whose.” 

“Does it matter?” 

“So it is someone I know,” said Erik, finally crossing the room to sit down on the foot of Charles’ bed. Charles rolled his eyes and ignored him. “Otherwise you would have said.” 

“Or I just don’t feel like telling you the details of the mission you’re _not going on_.” 

“Who could have children?” Erik wondered aloud, evidently deciding to feign deafness. “Janos might. Is it Janos?” 

“Why don’t you go find Hank, Erik, and if you would, please tell him Charles said to administer the sedative a bit early?” Erik _laughed_ , the bastard. 

“Nice try. Now, I assume Emma has no children—she doesn’t seem the mothering sort, somehow. Same with that jackass Logan. God forbid.” He sighed. “Is it really just that his parents are human? That’s boring, Charles.” 

“Go away, Erik.” A more direct approach… that didn’t work either. 

“No, if it were that boring you’d just have told me,” Erik continued. “Hmm. No way Hank has children—boy’s been tooling around here since he was twenty years old. Not a Summers, because Alex would come to you, not vice-versa. Er—” he paused. “Forgive me, but I can’t imagine he’s yours.” 

“I’m paralyzed from the waist down, in case you’d forgotten.” And that was exactly the last thing he had meant to say, but it was what shut Erik up. They both sat there in stunned silence for a moment. 

“God, Charles, I—” Erik shook his head. “I—I’m sorry.” Charles stared at him. 

“Sorry?” _You?_

“Enjoy it.” Ah, there was the Erik he knew. “You won’t hear it again without getting me drunk.” 

“What?” 

“Never mind.” Erik looked down. Silence again. 

“The child _isn’t_ mine,” Charles volunteered. “If you were your usual self you’d be pointing out that I’ve fixed this particular problem on occasion, so it’s not a real denial. But I have no children.” 

“Aside from your students,” Erik muttered. 

“Aside from my students.” 

“Right.” Erik shut his eyes for a moment, then looked up. “I’ll be going, then. Leave you to pack. I’ll even get sedated early, if you really want. It’s still preferable to the waking serum.” He stood and moved towards the door. 

“Don’t,” said Charles, stopping him before he could leave entirely. “You’re right.” 

“Naturally,” said Erik. Charles closed his eyes, somewhere between exasperation and disgust. _Dear God, why did I ever—_ “What am I right about this time?” 

“You can come.” When he turned around to stare in disbelief, Charles just fixed on him a level gaze. “You knew his parents best.” 

“I did?” 

“He’s Azazel’s son,” said Charles. “With Azazel’s powers.” Erik blinked. 

“So that’s why you need him.” 

“Yes.” 

“Who’s his mother?” 

“Doesn’t matter.” 

“You said I knew his _parents_ best. Not parent. Parents.” Erik frowned. “How old is he?” 

“Twelve.” 

“Oh.” His eyes narrowed. “Born in, what, ’64?” 

“Early in ’65.” Charles held back a smile and gave away nothing as Erik’s forehead creased in something between anger and confusion. 

“I was in prison.” 

“You certainly were.” 

“Fine.” Erik sighed. “Will it be obvious when we get there?” 

“You’ll see.” 

“Arschloch.” 

“If you say so.” 

“I’m taking back my apology.” 

“You do that.” 

“I’m really leaving now.” 

“Goodbye, Erik.” There, that had almost been civil, there at the end. Charles turned back to his suitcase and finally let the smile emerge. Truth be told, he had missed this a little. 

  


Somewhere Over France

  


Erik swung down into the copilot’s seat. 

“So, are you really planning to just fly into Germany?” he asked, in the same instant the plane lurched as Hank screamed and nearly jumped out of his skin. 

“What’s happening?” Charles called from the cabin, his voice sleepy but slightly panicked. “Erik, whatever you’re doing, please don’t? If you’re going to kill us, this is a terribly inconvenient time to do it.” 

“I did nothing!” 

“Jesus fucking Christ, how did he get on the plane?” Hank yelled. 

“Charles said I could come!” 

“He did not!” 

_Yes, I did_ , said Charles’ thoughts surprisingly primly. _Now, Hank, kindly try to avoid crashing the jet, and stop shouting, both of you. I’m trying to sleep._

“Why didn’t you tell me he was coming?” 

_I did. You weren’t listening. Good night._

“Shut up,” Hank hissed at Erik, who was having some trouble holding back laughter. He felt the best he had in days. 

“Really, though,” he said. “Germany? We may be coming from the west, but truly, you foresee nothing that could possibly go wrong?” 

“We’ll be fine,” said Hank dismissively as he slid the cockpit door shut behind him. “I have ways around detection.” Erik must have looked very doubtful, because Hank glanced at him and, more defensive, insisted, “it’ll be _fine_!” 

“If you’re wrong, I’m sure we’ll know shortly.” Erik leaned over to examine the little radar map on the display. “While we have time, is there any chance you’d be willing to make a detour?” 

“We don’t have time.” 

"Yes we do. It’s the middle of the night here.” 

“Did the Professor agree to this, too?” Hank asked suspiciously. 

“The Professor is asleep,” Erik evaded. Hank sighed. 

“How long will this detour take?” 

“Not long at all.” The promise may have been a lie through his teeth, and Hank probably knew that, but rather than argue the pilot sighed again, more heavily. 

“Where do you want to go?” 

They landed in Poland around 2 AM local time, and with another possibly-dishonest-promise to Hank not to take long and a glance at Charles, who seemed quite asleep on the couch, Erik stepped out to face gates he hadn’t seen in thirty-two years. 

_Arbeit Macht Frei._ These gates were infamous now. That was almost stranger than the thought that it truly had been over three decades. Slowly, hesitantly, Erik walked forward. 

He couldn’t help shuddering as he passed beneath the gates. Most metal had a sense that felt comforting, especially when he was familiar with it, but the familiarity that came with this metal was cold and painful. Erik’s feet slowed beneath him as he looked around at the moonlit skeleton that was all that remained of Auschwitz I. 

“Are you sure?” Hank had asked at least five times, even as they flew straight over Munich and continued onwards over Czechoslovakia. 

“I’m sure,” Erik had replied each time, and he repeated it now, silently, over and over, as he walked on unsteady legs across the barren ground toward the place where his mother was buried. Schmidt—Shaw—that _monster_ had given him that kindness, little though it could really be called kindness, burying his mother instead of just sending her to the crematorium after he killed her. 

There was no marker, there never had been, the burial alone was the softest Shaw ever got, but no matter. Erik could find her without one. He closed his eyes and searched down through the ground—yes—there it was, the one piece of metal in this ghastly place that didn’t make him want to tear his nerves out if only to stop _feeling_ it around him—there it was. The wedding ring. 

He knelt on the hard ground and tried to feel something—anything—in the way of her spirit. Nothing came but tears. 

“All right,” he whispered. “All right. I’m sorry, Mother. It’s me. I just—I came to say goodbye.” 

_Goodbye?_ echoed through his head, and perhaps all through the camp. He hadn’t heard the wheelchair behind him, which was unsurprising, really—he had been rather caught up in other things. Now he stood, and wiped the tears from his face almost violently with a single swipe of his hand. 

“Charles. I thought you were—” 

  


“You came to say goodbye?” Charles repeated, aloud this time. Erik spun to look at him almost too quickly. 

“I—” He mouthed soundlessly for a moment before he set his jaw and turned away again. “Yes. I came to say goodbye. If—when—I’m ever captured again—I don’t imagine I’ll have another chance. Not before I find out in short order whether I get to see her again.” 

“Wait. You _mean_ to die a martyr?” Charles hadn’t felt true rage in years, but one syllable from Erik’s mouth and here it was. Syllables from Erik’s mouth did tend to bring that out in him. On the other hand, syllables from Erik’s mouth could bring out a lot of other feelings, and— 

Charles would always be angry with Erik, he realized, always, at least in some part of him, somewhere. That anger was such a constant that it had almost _become_ the goddamn point between rage and serenity. And the same, he suspected, was true for Erik. He was beginning to realize—god, he was turning into such a _philosopher_ ; was this what it was going to mean, turning forty, getting old?—anger had to stem, in the first place, from love, because if there wasn’t a love to lose, what was there to be angry about? 

Here they were, drawn close together as they stood at opposite poles. Minds like magnets. Right now the invisible helmet was gone, and Erik’s mind ached all through. 

“Believe it or not, Charles,” said Erik coldly, that exterior perfectly calm as always, “there are others in the world who believe as I do. Others who just need the proper motivation to spring to action. When the government gives the death sentence, it will only prove that I was right—” 

“And if they don’t?” said Charles. “ _When_ they don’t? When they give you life in prison instead? The lighter sentence, Erik. Who will spring into action over that?” 

“Lighter sentence?” Erik snapped. “I would rather die than live out my days beneath the Pentagon, Charles. Life in prison is the crueler option.” 

“So if they kill you, you hate them, but if they let you live, you hate them more?” Charles shook his head, struggling to comprehend. But this was _Erik’s_ logic, after all. “How convenient for you.” 

“Convenient?” Erik turned to face him again. “Either I die, or I spend my life in solitary. Neither one of those options is what I would call convenient.” 

“That’s not what I meant—ugh.” Charles closed his eyes. “So you think suicide is the way to go? God, Erik—” 

“It’s not suicide. I can’t control the actions of the government.” _That’s not_ my _power_ , said his thoughts. Charles wanted to cry. He settled for changing the subject, if a bit shakily. 

“Why are you here, then?” He gestured around at the barren ground beneath them, the looming gate behind. Erik shrugged. 

“After Washington,” he said slowly, “it occurred to me to come here. To see it again.” 

“Why on earth would you want to do that to yourself?” Charles asked. “To say goodbye? Goodbye to _what_?” Erik twisted to look at him over his shoulder, and a shock ran through him. He had grown so accustomed, over the past few days, to seeing that face emotionless and cold, that to see it looking stricken was quite jarring. 

“My mother is buried here, Charles.” His mouth tightened. “My father, too, but his grave—I don’t know. He doesn’t have one, I think. Not really. He was cremated. But my mother is _right_ here.” He nodded at the ground. “I watched them bury her. I will never forget.” 

“Your—oh.” Charles sat back in his wheelchair—he had barely noticed he was pushing down hard on the armrests, like he could propel himself out of it if he just tried hard enough—and shut up as Erik turned away again. Whatever came next, he wanted to hear every word. 

“I thought, I’d been in prison for nine years—I ought to come visit. Just to—to pay my respects, I suppose.” In the moonlight, his broad shoulders heaved. “But I didn’t. I always told myself that I could put it off another week, another month, another year, that I would come back someday. Then I got arrested again.” 

“And you realized you couldn’t,” Charles finished. “So you’re doing it now.” He sighed. “I suppose I understand that.” 

“I just—” Erik shook his head. “Nothing. It’s pointless. Let’s go.” 

“What, Erik?” said Charles softly. 

“I thought I would feel something,” said Erik, just as quiet, to where Charles almost wasn’t sure whether it was his voice or his thoughts that were speaking. “Standing here. I was afraid—” He shook his head. “Stupid. Of course there’s nothing. There’s nothing, is there? You’re the telepath, you tell me. Is she—?” 

“I can’t tell you a thing about ghosts, Erik,” said Charles. “Whether they exist or not. What are you afraid of?” Erik said nothing, but suddenly his loud mind was screaming of shame, disappointment, rejection. _Whether I get to see her again._ His mother was human, Charles realized with a jolt, and it all fit together then. He was afraid she would be ashamed of what he had become. Even as it killed him, it was heartening. “Erik…” 

“Shut up, Charles. I already know what you’re going to say.” 

“Erik, your mother—” What _was_ he going to say? Now he got there, he really had no idea. 

“Humans killed her, Charles.” 

“A mutant killed her.” 

“No, a mutant _shot_ her,” Erik snapped. “It was humans who brought her here to die in the first place. They would have killed her even more cruelly, had they the chance. They did to my father.” 

Charles sat there in silence, trying to think of something, anything, to say. _Tell him his mother would love him no matter what._ But he had no idea if that was true. Erik’s mother might well be horrified to see what her son had become. 

No. The woman in the memories Charles had seen would love Erik still even as he was now. Any version. Erik might hurt her terribly, but still she would love him. Charles hated to think how very, very well he himself understood that position. 

“My friend—” 

“We should move on,” Erik said brusquely, turning around and stalking towards Charles and the jet. Charles turned and started to wheel off towards the door, but as Erik reached him strong hands grasped the wheelchair and began to push. He didn’t argue, and he couldn’t stop him with coercion. The invisible helmet had appeared again.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this got very dark very fast. Also much longer than it was supposed to be. Apologies.
> 
> Bavaria was part of West Germany during the Cold War. Good luck to Hank flying in from the east now.
> 
> Most of the people who were killed at Auschwitz were killed at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, but the kommandant at Auschwitz I had some privilege over the others. Since Shaw always seemed to latch on to power as cover for his own machinations, I think that's probably where he would have been.
> 
> I'm sorry the German nouns aren't capitalized? I think that's a place where it would be proper, but since the Spanish and French words aren't it would have looked kind of awkward,


	5. Arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh, what a circus! Oh, what a show!

****

Bavaria

  


By the time they arrived at the circus camp northeast of Munich, it was shortly after dawn. With the time difference they had used up a day already, and the jet lag weighed heavy on all three of them. 

Jet lag. That was all Charles would let on today. When he glanced at Erik, it was to see him stony-faced and staring straight ahead. Just twenty-four hours ago they had seemed almost on the verge of laughing together, and now— 

Now that was irrelevant. Now he would focus on the task before them. It was simple enough to get the ringmaster to let them in, and scarcely harder to search him for Kurt Wagner’s location. 

Hank wheeled Charles through the circus, Erik a few paces behind. No one seemed to notice them as they looked around for any sign of a little blue teleporter, and with good reason—Charles made sure they went unseen, not wanting to cause a disturbance even as he glanced through each mind they passed on the way. 

Anyone else would have been lost in the hubbub around them, but with the invisible helmet off Charles heard Erik’s mind surprisingly clearly. He didn’t dare peer in, but he could still feel everything that projected, and Erik was not happy. 

To Charles’ surprise, the negativity had little to do with last night, and was more about their surroundings. When he listened more closely, he almost laughed. Erik’s thoughts today were a fairly constant loop of _what the hell_ is _this, mutants putting their powers on display for human_ entertainment _, have they no_ pride _in what they can_ do _, in what they are?_

For all around them, intermingling with the human acrobats and lion tamers, were mutants. Some of them were more visible than others—here a scaly-skinned man who was quite legitimately breathing fire, there a teenage girl with limbs like elastic rehearsing an elaborate gymnastics routine. Once, Charles thought he caught a glimpse of someone with a very real ability to see the future, no mere fortune-teller, but she was gone as soon as he looked again. 

There was something else beneath the anger, though, an unfamiliar kind of fear. He was nervous, shaking, wanting to engage with everything but at the same time fighting the urge to run and hide. Charles frowned, unwilling to probe much deeper for fear of upsetting him further, and looked outward instead to try to pinpoint the cause. It was a difficult task in the hubbub that was the circus, the swirling mixture of bright colors and loud noises and strong smells, coalescing into—ah. Of course. Sensory overload. Charles _was_ familiar with that, painfully so—he had just never felt it from Erik before. He regarded him worriedly for a moment, noting the clenched fists and set jaw. After the solitude of the Pentagon, the quiet of the school and the plane, and the dark, ghostly silence of Auschwitz, to drop him right into the middle of a literal circus might not have been the best idea. 

It was probably far worse last time, he thought, after nine years of solitary confinement—but back then, of course, he couldn’t tell. _God, to have powers_ and _legs again…_

No point in dwelling on that. At least this time he could sense Erik’s pain, and understand. He wondered if there was anything he could do to help. 

This thought occurred to him just as Erik’s fists tightened and he felt his wheelchair—and probably all the metal in close range—begin to rattle a little. Luckily, it was at that moment that he recognized three children playing together outside a tent beneath a sign reading _Margali of the Winding Way_. 

“Erik,” Hank started to say, evidently sensing the same thing, but Charles hushed him. 

“There.” He pointed to the children. Even for Hank and Erik, who had never seen him, Kurt was unmistakable, especially since his siblings looked normally human. The wheelchair stopped rattling as Erik calmed, staring at the boy. Blue skin, yellow eyes. After a second, to Charles’ immense surprise, Erik actually laughed. 

“Knew his parents, indeed.” At least he found it funny. Charles could feel the bottom drop out of Hank’s stomach, his hands falling slack on the wheelchair, as he beheld Raven’s son. A child by someone else she had loved. 

Charles sighed. Hank would get used to it. God knew he had, between the Maximoffs and now Lorna as well. Kurt was only one child, and his father was _dead_. He didn’t project it, exactly, but reached out a comforting line of thought, and Hank relaxed. 

“Regardless,” said Charles, turning his attention back to Erik, “I don’t want you speaking to him unless it’s absolutely necessary. Let me handle it.” As he said the words, the tent flaps blew open and a woman stepped out. 

“Stefan, Jimaine, geht rein,” she said. Without question, the two human children scampered into the tent as their mother, breaking the glamour, looked Charles directly in the eye. He felt only power. “Charles Xavier. I thought I saw you coming.” Her English was only slightly accented. 

“I’m sorry,” said Charles. “Have we met?” 

“Not in body.” The woman smiled. “But I have noticed your searching. I know your touch.” Behind him, Hank was suddenly having a rather difficult time containing his snickers, while Erik had gone cold and still. Charles drew himself up to as tall a height as he could manage in the wheelchair and ignored them both. 

“We are here to speak with Kurt Wagner,” he said. “We have a task before us that requires his gifts. I assume you are his foster mother?” 

“Margali Szardos.” The woman inclined her head. “He is aware of his adoption, but aside from that I have raised him as my own.” She wasn’t a telepath, was the odd thing—Charles remembered her now, remembered her mind, and he would have been able to tell if she was. Still, somehow she seemed to hear his thoughts as clearly as he could hers. 

“Well, Frau Szardos,” said Charles, “would you mind letting me speak with Kurt? I have become aware of him through—” 

“That machine of yours. I remember.” Margali smiled knowingly. “Certainly you may speak with him. When you need to, I will see no problem with your taking him with you for a few days. He is quite old enough to be let out on his own when circumstances require it, and I do not doubt his safety so long as he is in _your_ care.” 

“Thank you,” said Charles politely, and looked from her to Kurt expectantly. Margali raised her eyebrows, as if expecting something more. When she didn’t get it, she turned and swept majestically back into the tent with only a soft word to Kurt as she went. 

“I think she likes you,” said Hank, sounding for all the world like a mocking adolescent. Charles rolled his eyes, at that and at Erik’s silent grumbling. 

“I think that’s what she hoped I would think,” he replied. To Erik he added, _as if you of all people have any right to jealousy, with_ your _track record the past few years_. Erik started, and within seconds had put on the invisible helmet. “Must you be such a child?” said Charles aloud. 

“What?” said Hank as Erik removed it again, making way for the words _I dislike you_ and a strong sense of the ascribed feeling along with them. Charles resolved to ignore him. 

“Nothing,” he said. “Never mind.” Kurt Wagner had seen them, and was eyeing them curiously. Charles waved. “Hello, Kurt,” he called, and the boy came up to them. 

“Sprechen sie Deutsch?” he asked. 

“No, I’m sorry. Do you speak English?” Charles replied. 

“A—a little,” said Kurt uncertainly. 

“Well,” said Charles, “I suppose we’ll have to get by. Your name is Kurt?” 

“Kurt Wagner.” The boy nodded. “Who are you?” 

“My name is Charles Xavier. I run a school for mutant children, and I am a mutant, like you.” 

“What is your gift?” Kurt asked. 

_Telepathy_ , Charles replied, and the boy giggled around a sense of confusion, not comprehending the word. _I read minds, and I speak to them._

“Oh.” Kurt grinned. “That is a good gift.” 

“I do enjoy it,” said Charles. 

“Why do—why do you know me?” Kurt asked. “Und mein Mutter?” 

“Well—” Charles considered for a moment. Best to get it out with, probably. “Your birth mother was my sister, Kurt, so I looked for you.” 

“Sie sind mein Onkel?” The boy looked surprised for a moment before shock reverted right back to happy curiosity. He was such a _cheerful_ child. It was infectious. Charles almost found himself turning to grin at Erik, like they were together trawling the East Coast for young mutants again, and would you look at this one? Before he caught himself and remembered that that was fifteen years ago, and a very different Charles, and an unfathomably different Erik. “Onkel Charles!” Kurt pronounced, distracting him, thank god. He laughed, and it was only barely forced. 

“Yes, I suppose so.” 

“How—why are you here, Onkel Charles?” 

“Well.” Charles sighed. “Um. You see, we’ve come into a—a bit of a debacle, and the one solution we can think of will require your particular talents—” he broke off. Kurt was holding out his hands to stop him. 

“I do not know these words,” he said. “My English is poor, I am sorry. I know only the—the basics.” 

“Right. Um—” Charles craned his neck around to look to Hank. “I don’t suppose you picked up German sometime when I wasn’t looking?” he asked hopefully. “Bright fellow like you?” 

“You’d have had more reason to, Professor,” said Hank only slightly flippantly. Behind them, Erik fidgeted, as if to add on to that not-so-subtle reminder of his existence. True to his word, Charles ignored him. 

“The German I know is hardly of use here,” he said. “It’s rather limited, mostly curses and—” he broke off, not wanting to explain _that_ fully, not to Hank. 

“Ja, liebster?” said Erik very, very dryly, as his mind supplied, _terms of endearment. Of course._ Charles gritted his teeth and did not look. “Perhaps _now_ you’ll allow me to speak?” Erik continued in the same tone. “I believe there was a clause in there about _necessity_.” 

“Fine,” Charles snapped. “Don’t corrupt him.” Erik rolled his eyes and knelt before Kurt, who now looked very, very confused. 

“Ich spreche Deutsch,” said Erik. “Mein Freund hier ist nutzlos, ja?” Two sentences and his demeanor changed entirely. This wasn’t irritable Magneto—this was Erik, sharing a joke, and Charles, he realized with a pang, couldn’t. Kurt giggled. 

“Wer sind sie?” he asked. 

“Ich bin Erik. Und du bist Kurt Wagner? Ich kannte deinen Vater.” Now the boy nodded, eyes brightening, and replied in very rapid German. Erik asked him the key questions—familiar phrases jumped out at Charles, and naturally words like _mutant_ —all the while projecting a smug sense of _see, Charles, I_ told _you I should come along_. He was so obnoxious about it that after a few moments Charles had to break out of ignoring him to retort. 

_You want the extent of my German? Arschloch._

_You must admit I have my uses. Arschloch or otherwise. As you well know._ A pause, as if he expected an answer. Charles didn’t deign to give him one. _Speaking of, Mozart once wrote a tune, as a joke, called—_

Ah, a reason to ignore him again. Charles put up his own barriers this time. Erik turned for an instant to look at him in shock, but Kurt caught his attention again and they continued. 

“He told me he’s never teleported more than a few feet,” Erik told them later, in the Munich hotel where they decided to stay. “Consequently, he has no idea what the limitations on his powers could be, or the potential. Skill-wise, he is far from what we need.” 

“But his talents are those exactly. Damn.” Charles sighed. “What do we do?” 

“Just train him,” said Hank, shrugging as if it were no big deal. “If anyone can, it’s you. Both of you.” 

“If anyone _could_ , it would have been Azazel,” Charles corrected. “Unfortunately, he’s dead.” Beside him, Erik flinched without taking his gaze off the floor. 

“You don’t have prehensile toes,” said Hank dryly. “You can’t shoot laser hula-hoops out of your chest, Professor, but you still managed to train me and Alex. And Sean,” he added, quieter, reverent for the dead. 

“I suppose so,” said Charles uneasily. 

“Actually, I trained Sean,” said Erik without looking up. 

“You pushed Sean off a hundred-foot tall satellite dish,” said Charles. “That is not the same thing as training.” 

“Is in my book.” 

“Well, _your_ book—” 

“Save it, both of you,” Hank interrupted. “Christ’s sake, Charles, you run a school for mutants just Kurt’s age. Remind me how many telepaths there are among them?” He had a point. 

“Fine,” said Charles. “You’re right. I probably can train him. It’ll take a few days, but he’ll be better prepared for it.” 

“And I’ll—” 

“You will do nothing,” Charles interrupted before Erik could even get the thought out all the way. “Pushing children from high heights is not a good teaching method, and for some reason I get the feeling it’s just the sort of thing you might actually think appropriate in this case.” 

“I’m not going to do that,” said Erik irritably, finally looking up. The dislike was strong again. Here, when it was unexpected, it stung a little. “I won’t go anywhere near him if that’s what you want. But you’ve never actually been inside the Pentagon prison, and more importantly, mein Freund, you need a translator.” 

“What, you translate words for me, I’ll translate memories for you?” He hated— _hated_ —to admit it, but Erik was absolutely right. Again. Charles grumbled mentally for a moment before he snapped, “Fine. But you keep your opinions to yourself.” Erik looked at him for a moment with hard eyes. 

“With pleasure,” he said, and stood, and stalked out of the room. Hank sighed. 

“I’ll keep an eye on him.” He too stood, and followed, leaving Charles alone to worry about how much and how badly this could go wrong. 

_So_ many ways.   

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope the German is all right. I only know a very little (though this amazing fandom is increasing that every day), at least in comparison to my actual second language, Spanish, and what I do know is more vocabulary than grammar. If someone who does speak German sees something wrong with it, please tell me and if you would, help me fix it? There will be more in the next chapter, and I'm much less confident in that, so it's going to matter more in a couple of days.
> 
> EDIT: Thank you thank you thank you to the amazing PetitPotato for the German corrections! You have been such a help and a gift and I cannot thank you enough.
> 
> Mozart wrote a song called "Leck mich im Arsch", which literally means "lick my ass", which to me just makes that one scene in This Is Spinal Tap with the Mach piece all the more amusing.
> 
> That's it. It's 1 AM and I have reached the point of drugging myself so I can sleep (wait, that sounds familiar...) so I'm sorry if these comments are rambling. That's all.
> 
> Except to note that the Word document with this story in it has now reached 55 pages. HOW. Thank you for kudos and comments. Kudos and comments are the sunshine of my existence.


	6. Freunde

**1962**

**Cuba**

  


The last words Erik thought, slowly and deliberately, were _I love you._ It was the first time he said them at all. Then he put on the helmet. 

Charles never acknowledged them once. 

  


**1977**

**Bavaria**

  


“Herr Lehnsherr?” 

“Erik,” Erik insisted, not for the first time. Kurt waved it aside. “Was?” 

“Was meinst du, wen du ‘mein Freund’ sagst?” Kurt asked, sharp yellow eyes a little knowing. _What do you mean when you say ‘my friend’?_ Erik froze. 

“Was?” 

“Über meinen Onkel,” the boy added. Erik was certain his silence spoke volumes, but he couldn’t think of anything to say. 

“Er ist mein Freund,” he finally managed. Kurt raised a single eyebrow. 

“Augenscheinlich,” he replied, very sardonically for a twelve-year-old. Then again, Erik, as a twelve-year-old, had had little room for irony in his life, never mind _widerrede_. Perhaps the attitude was normal for an adolescent. Charles would know. Perhaps he should ask. “Aber ‘mein Freund’ kann bedeuten—” Kurt began to add. 

“Ich weiß,” Erik snapped, cutting him off. Kurt recoiled slightly. 

“Weiß er das?” he asked pointedly. Erik stared at him. “Was? Im Zirkus, kümmert das niemanden.” _In the circus, no one cares._

“Ich weiß nicht,” Erik replied shortly. 

“Also, ist er ein Freund, oder ist er _dein Freund_?” 

“Meistens weder noch,” said Erik as un-wistfully as possible, and turned the conversation back to the Pentagon. _Mostly, neither._ He hadn’t admitted it in a while, and frankly he didn’t want to have to think about it too hard. 

“Sie sagten ‘Liebster’,” said Kurt as their lesson drew to a close. Erik blinked. 

“Was?” 

“Charles. Sie nannten ihn ‘Liebster’.” _You called him sweetheart._ The look Erik fixed on him then was enough to set the boy wide-eyed and running off to Hank, or perhaps to badger Charles for answers Erik didn’t imagine he’d have any more luck getting there. 

He sighed heavily and cradled his head in his hands. So far it had been easy to project only annoyance, shoving down any less convenient emotions that might come along at a phrase, a look, the way the sunlight caught in those goddamned beautiful eyes— 

Now, though, longing was creeping in, and it was only a matter of time before it started to slip out. Erik didn’t want that. He had his barriers, of course, and they had served him well so far in this venture, but in order for this to work he had to let Charles in at least a little, to give him thoughts to translate aloud for Kurt, and that made him vulnerable. 

In truth, in the two days they had been training the boy, Erik had found that in some moments he could close his eyes and almost feel fifteen years younger. Like it was a different summer, in a different place, when they were still genuinely happy even in the face of the threats looming on the horizon. When he did, when he let himself slip back in his mind to a time when Charles loved him, it hurt to come back to reality. Still, as the hours went by, full of frigid distancing and passive-aggressive bickering, he found himself going there more and more. Sometimes, in quiet moments, mornings or evenings when there was nothing to do, he saw Charles looking rather far away too. He wondered if they were in the same place. 

That quiet evening, the atmosphere was somewhat tenser than it had been. The hotel suite was cool, Hank in the kitchenette preparing a dose of serum, Charles reading at the desk where the office chair had been moved aside to make way for the wheelchair, Erik lounging on the couch, staring out the window. The wheezing fan in the corner whirred away, and Hank’s bottles clinked and liquids splashed together, but no one spoke. 

Erik knew perfectly well that much of the tension stemmed from his own presence. Had he not been there, he imagined the silence would be companionable, between Charles and Hank—but he was. Their problem, he decided. Charles had agreed to bring him along; he could deal with the repercussions. 

Of course, more than likely it was also partly his demeanor tonight, sitting there brooding with barriers up, but he didn’t particularly care. Right now, he would take what moments of defined privacy he could get. 

Out of nowhere, the tension snapped with a _bamf_ as Kurt appeared from thin air at the other end of the couch. Erik scrambled back and nearly fell to the floor; Hank shattered something in the sink with a cut-off curse; and Charles looked up, calm as anything. 

“Hello, Kurt,” he said pleasantly. “Very impressive.” 

“Was it?” Kurt grinned wickedly, showing his fangs. The expression was so reminiscent of Azazel it hurt. “I have been practicing!” 

“It shows.” Charles smiled. “Well done. But why are you here?” 

“Mama told me I could come to visit you, Onkel. For practicing. So here I am!” Azazel had never been this goddamned cheerful, though, nor indeed anything short of stoic—nothing close to resembling this little motormouth. Frankly, Erik thought, neither was Mystique— 

_Not everything is an inherited trait, Erik_ , came through loud and clear. Erik clapped his hands over his ears, as if that would help, and glared at Charles. His barriers were slipping. Four years of practice undone in a week. It was enormously frustrating. For his part, Charles outwardly ignored him, which was actually even more frustrating. 

_You’re saying this is the product of a happy childhood?_ He projected all the doubt he could muster. In Erik’s experience, it was a rare mutant who really got one, and Kurt’s foster mother unnerved him. Surely the boy was just born with this disposition. He’d always thought Charles must have been, with the youth he knew from Raven they had had—it didn’t seem _impossible_. 

_Yes,_ Charles began to reply, but that was all Erik heard—he had found control again, and the walls went up as fast as shock had made them vanish. Now Charles glanced at him, a look of annoyance that it was Erik’s turn to ignore. 

“What are you doing, Herr McCoy?” Suddenly Kurt was sitting on the counter. To Hank’s credit, nothing broke this time. 

“Um—” he stuttered. “I’m fixing—medicine. Something I take to—keep my mutation under control.” 

“Your gift?” Kurt frowned. “What is this gift that it makes you ill?” 

“No, no,” Hank backtracked, “not—ill, not exactly, it’s not medicine in that sense, it—” 

“What is your gift?” Kurt added curiously. “I cannot see it.” Hank choked a laugh. 

“That’s the idea,” he said. Kurt vanished in a puff of blue smoke and reappeared at his elbow. 

"Zeigen sie doch mal, Herr McCoy?" 

“You know, you can really just call me Hank—” 

“Will you show me?” Kurt said again. Hank looked from him to Charles to Erik, who shrugged. Hank had walked right into this one—his problem. 

“How do you do that?” Charles asked lightly, spinning his chair to face Erik. Evidently—uncharacteristically—he had chosen the same interpretation. “Block me out without the helmet.” 

“You tell me,” said Erik coolly. “You’re the one who went in all the way.” Charles frowned. 

“In DC?” 

“You took me over.” Erik looked away. “On the benefit of the doubt I’d say you were still regaining your skill, Charles—but it was rather roughly done. Like you forced your way in with a blunt object, perhaps.” Charles glared at him. He tried to smirk, but felt it come out a grimace. 

“Perhaps.” 

“Once you did, though, I could see—where the cracks were, I suppose—” he shrugged. “And your own barriers. I reverse-engineered it, in a way.” 

“I see.” Charles was quiet for a moment. Then, just as he opened his mouth to continue, both their attention was caught by Hank, at the counter, turning blue. Normally, as even Erik knew, Hank turning blue was a warning sign of violence to come, so this was something of a surprise; Kurt could get annoying—Erik would readily attest to that—but surely he couldn’t provoke that kind of a reaction. He was up off the couch in the same instant Charles slowly said, “Hank…” 

“It’s fine,” said Hank, his voice made gruff. “I’m just showing him.” Erik stopped. 

“Showing… him?” Charles shook his head. “Hank—?” 

“He is blue!” Kurt giggled—the next second he was very literally bouncing off the walls. Erik, ducking out of his way, fell back onto the couch. When he looked up, to his surprise, Charles was smiling. 

“Yes,” he said, “he certainly is.” 

“Blue like me!” Kurt finally stopped back in front of Hank, grinning up into his furry blue face. Hesitantly, Hank smiled back. “Why are you not blue always, Herr Mc—Hank?” 

"Außerhalb vom Zirkus kümmert es jeden," said Erik, and Kurt’s smile faded. He looked up at Hank, then from Erik to Charles and back again. 

“They should not,” he said quietly. “Herr Hank, I like your blue.” Hank just looked uncertain. 

“Kurt,” said Charles, and sounded like a professor, “it’s getting late. Perhaps it’s about time you were back at the circus? I’m sure Margali is worried about you.” 

“Mama will not mind,” said Kurt, but his cheer had all but vanished. 

“I’m sure she won’t, Kurt,” said Charles gently, “but it is getting rather late, and you may recall the three of us are functioning on jet lag—” 

“All right.” Kurt looked little happier, but at least he didn’t look betrayed. With a _bamf_ he appeared at Charles’ elbow, and, to Erik’s surprise, hugged him. 

“I’m very impressed with your progress, Kurt,” Charles told him on release. “The teleportation certainly appears to be in place. Tomorrow, I believe, we ought to go. Will that be all right with you?” Kurt nodded, a shade of excitement returning to his face. 

“Ja! I want to fly in the plane!” 

“Well.” Charles smiled. “So you shall.” 

“Auf Wiedersehn, Onkel!” And the boy vanished, almost Cheshire Catlike, his wide fanged grin the last thing that seemed to linger before their eyes. 

“Well,” said Charles after a moment, “that’s that. He’s coming along very well.” He turned to Erik. “If we are to go to Washington tomorrow, Erik, I will need your memories of the prison…” In order for Kurt to safely access the white room, they had figured out, he needed to know a great deal about it lest he teleport into the wall. Erik sighed. 

“Fine.” He moved to sit at the other end of the couch, closer to the wheelchair. “Go ahead.” 

“I’ll just leave you two alone,” said Hank hurriedly, gathering up his bottles and syringes and running off into his bedroom. Erik closed his eyes for a moment to make sure his shields were fully down, and would remain so. Then he looked at Charles, who met his eyes and pressed his fingers to his temple and then— 

_Hello, my friend. Is this sufficiently subtle?_

_Fine._ Erik made the thought as terse as he could. _Get what you need and go._

_Relax,_ washed over him. _This needn’t take long. Just… calm your mind._

_We both know how that usually goes._ He felt the unexpected pang like an echo of Charles’ emotions, and was a little surprised at how heartbroken it felt. 

_Just relax,_ he thought gently. Erik complied, relaxing in the best way he knew: he fell away. He stepped back, out of his own mind, relinquishing control, sitting aside and more watching than participating as Charles sifted through Erik’s memories of prison for those he would need. 

Gradually he slipped into a state that was a fundamental part of some of those memories—meditation, half-in and half-out of his conscious mind. He had created it somewhere around—well, by his guess, around 1967, but he had no way of knowing, really. Time had passed strangely down there. Sometimes, when he looked back, those ten years seemed like no time at all. 

It was the meditation that did that, he was sure. Removing himself, feeling separate from the world, had made the isolation bearable. Relinquishing control… the introversion was a cold one, but it was better than staying constantly awake. When he was awake, he was constantly reaching, stretching towards something that simply wasn’t there. Polymers. Glass. Concrete. Never what he ached for. The searching could be methodical, certainly, but he was always going to come up with nothing. Much though _he_ knew that, his mind went around the circle anyway, over and over, until his bones ached under the strain. It didn’t take long for Erik to realize, living on this pattern, he was bound to snap eventually, but detaching himself from the process, blocking out the sensation, like rubbing a numbing agent over every last nerve ending, might let him last a little longer. So he hoped. 

In a rather twisted way—he never actually thought it, because if he let the words float to the surface they would break him out of it—but in a way, this was his point between rage and serenity. 

If no other good came of Charles in his mind like this, he thought, at least he had found this distant peace again. When he was arrested this time and put back into the cell, he had searched for this way out, only to find he had lost the reflex in the intervening four years. Even a day of it had left him restless beyond insomniac. _To sleep, perchance to dream—_

“ _Erik._ ” Charles’ voice, suddenly sharp, echoed both aloud and in his mind, pulling him out of it. 

“What?” he asked, startled, but it was drowned out by the cacophony that came from every unsecured metal object in the room falling out of midair at the same instant. “…Oh.” It had never occurred to him to wonder what would happen if he slipped out of himself in a place where there _was_ metal, but evidently that was it. When he looked up, Charles’ knuckles were very white on his armrests, his eyes wide, shaken, and brimming with tears. 

“My friend—” 

“Do you have what you need?” Erik interrupted. Charles blinked. 

“I—in the strictest terms, yes, but _Erik_ —” 

“Then I’m going to bed,” said Erik shortly. “Good night.” He stalked into his room, brushing past Hank, who was back to pale and brown-haired now and had evidently been called by the crashing. 

“What the hell happened?” he heard him say, but then his head was buried under a pillow and he didn’t have to. 

  


**1962**

  


The rooms were adjoining. Erik learned this on the very first night he was there: he was looking around, considering what to unpack and whether to unpack at all, when his closet door opened and out came Charles. 

“How do you like it, my friend?” he asked, practically bouncing. Erik nearly jumped out of his skin. 

“You—why were you in my closet?” 

“It’s a metaphor,” said Charles, so quickly Erik was sure he’d misheard, then, “the closet is shared between the rooms. My grandfather was fond of secret passageways.” 

“I—I see.” Erik set down the shirt in his hands, still shaken. “It—the room?” He shrugged, searching for something to say. He could think of nothing that would quite express how he felt about this—the mansion, the grounds, the _opulence_ —so he settled for, “…it’s very nice.” 

“I’m glad you like it.” Charles smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. “Look, I see you’re still getting settled, but perhaps unpacking can wait? I want to show you something.” 

“All right.” Erik made for the door to the hall, but Charles caught his arm and pulled him through the closet instead. They fumbled through—why were there coats here? It wasn’t as if anyone had lived here in, what, years?—and out into Charles’ bedroom. 

Erik tried not to be disappointed that the thing Charles wanted to show him wasn’t the bed. Instead he was pulled out into the hallway. Charles led him across and through another door, into a shadowy room full of ghostly shapes. When he flicked the light on, Erik could see that the shapes were in fact white sheets covering most of the furniture. 

“This was my father’s study,” said Charles. “It went… untouched, in the years after his death. I thought now was as good a time as any to open it again.” He set his hands on his hips, looked around, and sighed. “It’s not—obviously I’m still finding out where things are, around, you know, I hadn’t been here in years and the house is rather large—but I remembered this.” He nodded towards two chairs and a chess table sitting uncovered in the middle of the room. “Fancy a game?” 

“I’d love to,” said Erik. Charles smiled—so _brightly_ it made his head spin—and sat down in one of the chairs. 

“You take white this time,” he said. “Perhaps black will change my luck.” He hadn’t won a game yet. Sometimes Erik wondered if he did it on purpose, in some attempt to prove his integrity as an opponent, that he wouldn’t look into Erik’s mind to win—but Charles was better than that, he admonished himself. Losing on purpose was just as bad as cheating. 

He sat, gazed at the board for a moment, and made his first move. 

Charles won. At first some part of Erik that truly, deeply hated losing tried to rise up and insist that he hadn’t been playing his best—he had been distracted—but really, he knew, he had been no more distracted through this game than through any of those before, so rather than being sore about it he smiled and said, “well played.” 

They cleared the pieces quickly, fingers brushing as they pressed them one at a time into their velvet-lined drawer beneath the board. Then, as they stood, before Erik quite decided whether to do it, he did it anyway, seizing Charles’ shoulders and kissing him. 

They broke apart to stare at each other for a moment. Erik was sure his own face was betraying him horribly, nowhere near the look of impassivity he tried to maintain. Charles gave away nothing but shock, blue eyes wide, red mouth slightly open. Erik let him go and stepped back, fear blooming in his stomach. What would this—so proper, so polite—what would he think of him now? 

“I—I’m sorry,” he started to say, but Charles seized the front of his shirt and pulled him forward again. 

“Apologies, my friend?” He shook his head. “Of all the unnecessary things.” And he was kissing him again, and Charles' arms were around his neck, body straining up to stand as tall as him, and god but Erik needed them to be horizontal. 

There was a couch in the study, but it was covered in sheets and a heavy layer of dust. Charles pulled him across the hall and Erik pressed him up against the door before he could open it, mouth never leaving his jaw, thigh working its way between his legs. Charles swallowed hard and opened his mouth, clearly intending to speak, but all that came out was a sound that was neither proper nor polite, a sound Erik hoped to hear many, many times again, and as soon as was possible. Perhaps right against the door— 

_No,_ echoed faintly through his mind, snapping his head away—Charles’ fingers curled tight in his hair and pulled him back down— _not out here._ It was as if his very thoughts were struggling to formulate at all. Erik loved it. _Any of the children could—_ Then Erik shifted his hips, and the projection vanished entirely with a soft sort of mental moan in addition to the very real one in his ear. 

His hands were a little busy elsewhere, so with the last bit of his consciousness that wasn’t wholly focused on Charles’ throat, Erik reached out and turned the knob. He caught Charles before he could tumble back onto the bedroom floor, and stumbled far enough inside that letting him fall meant tumbling him onto the bed instead. With the same magnetic push he closed the door behind them. 

Erik got no unpacking done that night, and nearly as little sleep. 

  


**1977**

  


This sleepless night was very different. 

Erik laid awake in the dark hotel room feeling the seconds tick by. Try though he might, he couldn’t sleep, and after this incident he didn’t feel he trusted himself to meditate without breaking something. At some point Hank came in and fell into the other bed; within minutes he was snoring. That certainly didn’t make sleep any more likely. 

Satisfied that Hank was too far gone to hear him, Erik slipped out of bed and out into the shared living room. Charles’ door was closed, but not locked. He opened it by hand, slowly, deliberately, to see Charles lying propped up on his elbows, looking up at him curiously. 

“Everything all right, my friend?” he asked softly, pushing himself up farther, clearly with a good deal of effort. 

“I—” Erik closed his mouth. He couldn’t think how to express what he wanted to, not out loud, so instead he moved carefully to sit on the other side of the bed. 

“Erik?” Charles was seated fully upright now, turned towards him. He reached out, clearly aiming to touch his shoulder, but Erik caught his hand instead, curling the fingers into place before he pressed them to his temple. Charles gasped. 

_Just look,_ Erik thought, and closed his eyes, and let down all his shields. 

_Oh, my friend—_ Charles leaned closer, until their foreheads were pressed together. Half-consciously Erik pulled him in, arm around his waist, and slid down so that they laid together under the thin hotel blankets. 

He opened up and showed Charles everything. Most of that everything was grief, despair, and guilt, but as the emotions swirled into Charles’ understanding Erik felt him soothe them. Gradually, what began as a jolting ebb and flow of pain slowed to a steady stream of comfort, like Charles caught the unpleasant memories almost before they arose. 

_I’m so sorry,_ one of them thought, or both of them, perhaps, at once. The regret was the first emotion that felt shared rather than a give and take. They were blending together. It had happened only once before, fifteen years ago. 

It was rougher this time, the connection, not that it had been perfectly smooth before—but since then they had drifted much farther apart just in being who they were. In some ways that made it almost better. The pleasure of disagreement was as deep as it was perverse, ideas balancing out where opposition emerged, points conceded as others were maintained, minds stretching in tandem, acceptance and forgiveness an underlying constant just for tonight. 

_Agree to disagree_ , reverberated through the mind and slowly quieted. _Agree to disagree, agree to disagree, agree to disagree…_ As it faded, the arguments went with it—all coherent thought, really, leaving them to communicate only in emotion, basking in each other. They stayed like that for hours, slipping around together between sleeping and waking, dreaming as one mind. 

_You never came for me,_ Erik thought eventually, separating a little regretfully from the warmth of Charles-and-Erik as they came awake around dawn. _I understand why you didn’t before, but I thought this time you might._

_I would have_ , Charles thought slowly, _eventually. If it came to it._

 _Will you come to rescue me next time, then?_ If there was a next time. It seemed likely enough. 

_We’ll see,_ Charles thought. _Bear in mind, if it came to it, it would be_ after _the trial._

_After the trial?_ Oh. _If they condemned me to death._

_Much though you would have hated me then, I’m sure, for being so blind as to give the humans a chance in the first place._ He felt too tired to be at all bitter about it. Erik had forgotten how sweet he was in the mornings. His hand had drifted away sometime in the night to rest softly on the blankets over Erik’s stomach, as they had fallen aside to lie on different pillows. The connection had been wholly psychic, they realized at once, and it sent a little thrill through their minds. 

_I will never hate you._ Erik sighed. _Your optimism, Charles, if naïve and misguided—_

_Thanks ever so_ , Charles thought, his projection more amused than offended— 

_It is the most admirable quality you have._

_And yet you persist in the opposite._

_People are rarely any of the things we most desire to be._

_How wise you’ve grown, in my absence._ The thought was light, wry, but Erik felt an undercurrent of deep truth in it nonetheless. He found Charles’ other hand beneath the covers and held on. 

_Everyone is better when they no longer have someone to impress._ Raven certainly had, he thought privately. Without Charles, sure, but even then it wasn’t until she left Erik’s own sphere of influence that she really flourished. 

_You both deserved so much better,_ Charles thought. Apparently that musing hadn’t been private after all. _Better than I gave you._

_You gave us the best you knew how._ There was no response to that, not at first, just a rush of warm surprise that left him breathless with the power of the emotion. 

_I wish I had known better, then._ Charles squeezed his hand. Erik squeezed back, twining their fingers closer still. They lay there a few moments longer, thoughts murmuring to themselves, nothing directed at the other. Then— 

_I love you._ Except for a brief slip in the first moments he saw Charles again four years ago—being punched in the face tended to prove detrimental to his control, not that Charles could hear him then, not that he knew that in the moment—it was the first time since Cuba he had let the expression be so plain. The words drifted out in the swirl, not at first intended to be heard, but Charles exhaled sharply and Erik knew they had been. _I may dislike you at times, and I may not agree with you—I may never—_ he made this deliberate— _but never doubt that I love you._ Slowly, deliberately, and with great effort, Charles rolled over, curling as far as he could against Erik’s side. He hid his face in Erik’s shoulder before, in relaxation, his thoughts finally formed a reply. 

_And much though I, Erik, may ever disagree with you—_ he felt the sigh against his chest— _the fact remains that I don’t want to live in a world without you in it._

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Longest chapter yet. Also the most important chapter yet. Possibly the most important chapter at all. So, hopefully, worth the length.
> 
> Once again, pardon any mistakes in the German, my grasp is very limited and my translator friends are also nonnative speakers. If I've screwed something up too badly, please tell me so I can fix it?
> 
> Again, EDIT: Thank you so much to PetitPotato for doing exactly that!


	7. Raven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I recognize that Erik has made a decision, but given that it's a stupid-ass decision--  
> Wait, wrong franchise."  
> \- Hank McCoy

**Washington, DC**

  


The Capital in August was warm and muggy. 

“God,” said Hank as he wheeled Charles down from the airplane, “I’d almost rather be in the prison.” Charles shot him a look, and, to his surprise, Erik chuckled. 

“The weather there is certainly superior.” Charles got an odd flicker from him, then, of some incongruence in his thoughts—but Hank crushed any theory he could develop, of course, by being loudly oblivious in his banter. 

“You being cheerful is a little frightening, Erik, you know that?” 

“And you’re a little frightening when you aren’t,” Erik retorted. 

“That’s more like it.” Hank shook his head. “Kurt—wait—” the boy was a little difficult to see at the moment, he was teleporting so fast from place to place around the clearing. _Bouncing off the walls,_ Charles thought, and was struck by a vivid memory of the last time they had had to do a prison break. Always the teenaged son, it seemed. At least Kurt wasn’t a bloody kleptomaniac. 

He called the boy over and, now that it was time, gave him the carefully-filtered memories that would let him get into the cell without mishap. Kurt swayed on his feet for a moment—Charles could feel him reeling with the sudden influx of new information, and wondered if he shouldn’t have taken it slower—but he snapped back quickly. 

“I will be quick,” he said, and vanished, leaving the adults silent in their anxiety. Then, finally, after a moment that seemed to take forever—during which Charles’ mind went into overdrive imagining, once again, every possible way this could go wrong (and projecting them, he realized, when Hank clapped his hands over his ears and Erik hissed his name)—finally, with a puff of smoke and a _bamf_ , two figures appeared in the field. 

“Oh, thank god.” Charles let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding as a second Erik stood face-to-face with the real one. 

“My hair is not that blond,” said Erik, whose mind was screaming incoherently at the sight of his own doppelganger. Charles fought back laughter. He had grown up with Raven; he had quite forgotten how strange it was the first time one saw such a thing. “My hair _is not blond_.” 

“As if the guards noticed,” said the other Erik in an accent even more exaggerated than the way she usually did Charles’, and with a flurry of blue scales lost six inches and went even blonder. Even though she stood closer to Erik, to Charles’ amazement Raven came to hug him first. 

“You and I,” he said, holding her at arm’s length, “need to have a very serious talk. Perhaps several.” 

“Of course we do.” She kissed his forehead. “But I just can’t take you seriously when your hair looks like this, so I think you’re going to find that a little difficult.” 

“Glad you’re safe, Raven,” was all Charles said to that. 

“Me too,” she said as she pounced on Erik next. He looked as uncomfortable as he ever did when people hugged him. 

“Thank you, Raven,” he said a little irritably. “This was perhaps the single least intelligent thing you’ve ever done. If you squeeze any tighter you’re going to break me.” 

“Me, break the great Magneto? What do you think the government will pay me?” Now he actually pushed her away, not that it did anything to remove her smug grin. 

“Good to know a week in the worst place on earth didn’t kill that delightful sense of humor,” said Erik. That flicker again. It didn’t feel like a shield—it felt like some notion he was trying to hide in plain sight. More an inside pocket than a helmet. 

“I missed you too,” said Raven, and turned to Hank. For a moment they just regarded each other rather uncomfortably. Then, to everyone’s surprise, Raven hugged him, too. Hank cycled from alarmed to shocked to happy to nervous in the space of about a second, and Charles bit back a laugh again. “Sorry I put you through this,” Raven told Hank when she stepped away again. “Thanks for going along with it.” 

“It was nothing,” Hank managed. They all stood—well, excepting Charles—in an uncomfortable silence for a moment, until Erik broke it. 

“So, Kurt,” he said, turning to the boy, who still looked quite shaken. “What do you think of my prison?” The flicker was stronger this time. Charles almost grasped the thought before it—but only almost, and it vanished undeciphered. 

“Your prison?” Kurt blinked. Erik replied in German, and the blue boy’s eyes widened. So did Charles’—he felt it—as he realized why he couldn’t understand the thought. Somehow, Erik had separated a part of his mind into the language. _Ich gehe zurück_. If Charles could only see the intent… “ _Oh_ ,” Kurt realized aloud. “Oh. Dein Gefängnis. Es… weiß.” 

“That it is.” Erik added something else, switching back, and Kurt replied in the same tongue, and Charles lost track of the conversation, and the flickering German thoughts, entirely. 

“He’s being remarkably… unmurderous.” Raven regarded Erik curiously. 

"Is that a word?" said Charles. 

“Yeah, he’s in a strangely good mood today,” said Hank, ignoring him. 

“Is he,” said Raven, damn her, looking right at Charles, who barely managed to keep his own face impassive. When he glanced up, Erik’s smile was a little wicked. 

“I slept well,” he said. Now Charles fought the urge to hide his face in his hands. “Well enough to last me a while,” he added, and then, before anyone could move, he leaned over Charles’ wheelchair, boxing him with hands on his wrists on the armrests, and kissed him long and hard. Once an instant’s shock dissipated Charles’ hands drifted up to cup his jaw and curl into his hair, holding him down to kiss back. Even then, Erik pulled away much too soon. 

“I—” Charles blinked. “Erik—” Kurt looked curious, Raven delighted, Hank… scarred, and Erik had already turned back to the blue boy. 

“Mein weißes Gefängnis,” he said. “Bring mich dort hin.” As he said the words aloud, the intent rang loud and clear in English in his head: that, _let’s give them a chance, then,_ and a brief sense of _goodbye_. Erik seized Kurt’s hand, and the boy reacted automatically. 

“Erik, _no_ —” but with a _bamf_ , they were gone. Charles stared at the spot where Erik had vanished He could feel their minds move as he clung to them; the sensation was foreign, but fantastic. It was a stretch, but he thought he heard a faint _I’m sorry, Charles_ echo from somewhere far away beneath the ground. 

_You can’t have thought this through._ He projected it as far, and as pointedly, as he could, and to his amazement he felt Erik hear. 

_Believe me, I have. Behind closed doors._

_I didn’t see it last night._

_I didn’t think of it._

_You hadn’t decided yet._ It was a trick he had felt students use on occasion—consider doing something they knew to be a bad idea, but never decide one way or the other until the very last second. 

_Until last night, I didn’t have the inspiration to choose._ A moment of soft silence. Then, _I hope you’re right, Charles. Perhaps in this future of ours, you will be. I’m going to find out._

Hit with a rush of emotion that surprised even him, a hot mixture of fury and relief and affection, Charles closed his eyes, shaking his head, and sought to calm himself. He stayed like that until, moments later, Kurt returned alone, looking even more shaken and scared than before. 

“I’m sorry, Onkel Charles,” he said, “I—I did not think—” Hank had stepped slightly away, as if to get out of range. 

“Charles,” he said slowly, and then nothing else. Charles raised his eyebrows. 

“What?” he asked. Hank stared at him. 

“You’re not going to, um—” 

“Throw a mental tantrum?” said Charles dryly. “No, Hank. I’ve rather grown out of those.” 

“…Oh.” Hank was still looking at him suspiciously, so Charles smiled brightly at him. 

“I’m in an oddly good mood today, too,” he said. Raven smirked and Hank looked away, muttering something that sounded distinctly like _do not want to know…_ “Besides,” Charles added, “This time, at least, I trust that Erik knows what he’s doing. He certainly wouldn’t put himself back in prison if he didn’t feel it was the right thing to do.” 

“All—all right.” Hank didn’t look convinced, and he dawdled long enough in keeping a wide berth that Raven rolled her eyes and seized the wheelchair. 

“Well then,” she said. “Let’s go. I’d like an actual shower.” 

“Wait,” said Hank. “We’re not going to, um, get him? We’re just going to leave him there?” 

“He made his decision,” said Raven before Charles could say it, much to his surprise. 

“But it’s a _stupid_ decision!” 

“Since when do you care if Erik makes stupid decisions?” said Raven doubtfully. “Anyway, it’s his stupid decision to make.” Without further ado, she wheeled Charles up into the jet. The ensuing silence, once the others boarded, was a little stony. 

“What did he even do this time?” Hank asked, finally, as he and Raven got the jet prepared for the flight back to Germany. She glanced at Charles. 

“You never told him?” she asked. He sighed. 

“To be perfectly honest, Raven,” he said, “I didn’t read that part myself.” His sister stared at him in shock. 

“You didn’t look?” she asked. “You—you don’t know. Charles, he—” Charles held up a hand to stop her. 

“I don’t want to know,” he said shortly. “I realize this is a first, and it may seem odd, but this time it makes no difference to me. The Erik Lehnsherr who just willingly put himself back in prison is not the Erik Lehnsherr who was put there to begin with.” Raven blinked. 

“Good,” was all she said to that, before she turned back to stowing breakable objects in their locked cabinets. They all worked in silence as they finished preparations for takeoff, with only murmured pardons and suggestions as they secured themselves. Within moments and without trouble they were in the air. The atmosphere in the cabin relaxed, though the silence remained. 

“What is your name?” Kurt asked Raven curiously, breaking it. “How do you know Onkel Charles and Herr Lehnsherr?” Raven froze, looking at Charles, projecting _help_. 

“Kurt,” Charles started to say, “Raven is—” but Raven glared at him so unexpectedly fiercely, with such a strong projection of _NO_ , that he was shocked into stuttering the half-truth, “this—well, this is Raven, Raven Darkhölme, she’s an—an old friend of ours. We’ve both known her for a very long time.” Raven relaxed, and nodded. 

“You change form?” Kurt asked, attention still on Raven. “That is your gift?” 

“Gift.” Raven smiled. “Yes, I’m a shapeshifter.” 

“Is this your face?” Kurt asked, cocking his head to one side. Raven shook her head uncertainly. The boy’s eyes widened in excitement. “May I see?” 

“I—of course,” and Raven became Mystique, and Charles choked at the sight of them sitting side-by-side on the couch. The resemblance was astounding, now he saw it in full: mother and son, blue-skinned, yellow-eyed, each regarding the other both with unfathomable delight, though only Kurt would show it. 

“Herr McCoy, Herr McCoy!” He vanished with a _bamf_ , to all the adults’ horror even as in the same instant he reappeared in the copilot’s chair. “Raven is blue also, Herr McCoy! Like me and like you!” 

“You showed him your blue, Hank?” Raven called, surprised. “Good for you.” 

“He did!” said Kurt gleefully. “We—we must have a—a Society of Blue! Blue mutants! We three.” And he began talking in that boyishly excited rapid-fire German of his. 

“Kurt,” Charles called, “we—er, we left the one who speaks German—” 

“Shh, Onkel!” Kurt replied. “I am planning.” 

“Good god,” Charles laughed to himself and Raven, “he really does remind me a little of you, you know—” 

“Can you wipe him?” Raven asked, gazing into the cockpit a little wistfully. Charles blinked. 

“What?” 

“Like you did to Moira,” she said. “After Cuba.” 

“How do you know about that?” 

“We kept tabs.” Raven shrugged. Truth be told, Charles was unsurprised. “Can you wipe him? I—we _all_ need him not to remember this, otherwise—” 

“I suppose we have made rather a national security threat of the boy.” Charles sighed. “I’ll do it when we get to Munich. Let him go back to regular Kurt Wagner. Well,” he amended, “as regular as Kurt Wagner can be.” 

“Thank you.” 

“He won’t remember you, either,” he warned. 

“He doesn’t know who I am.” Raven shrugged. “I’d rather he didn’t. It would only… complicate things.” Her voice faded a little on the last. 

“Is that why you left him in the first place?” Charles asked, matching her hushed tone. “He would complicate things?” 

“Having a child in tow wouldn’t have been safe for anyone,” said Raven, now almost a whisper. “Especially with Erik gone. We were scattered, and I was so young, and—and not long after that, Azazel—” she swallowed hard and blinked quickly, and Charles looked down, allowing her the moment. “It was the right choice,” Raven finished. 

“He seems to have been raised quite well so far,” said Charles, hoping it would be some comfort. He was rather at a loss. Raven’s projections were in turmoil, and he didn’t dare go further. 

“Yes, he’s doing wonderfully.” She smiled faintly. That was a good sign, Charles decided. They sat quietly for a moment, Raven regarding the floor, Charles regarding her fondly. 

“Will I ever find out where you’ve been all these years?” he asked, as he had the night—less than a week ago, good god, it seemed forever—she first came to visit. 

“Maybe,” Raven replied, as she had then. 

“Well.” Charles sighed. “Look, there is one thing—erm—pardon me, I don’t want to dredge up any pain, but—Azazel?” To his immense relief, Raven smirked. 

“Oh, come on,” she said. “Don’t tell me you don’t understand just a little, Charles, I’m perfectly aware you have a, um, capacity to appreciate men—well, one man, at least—that works pretty much the same way mine does—” she rolled her eyes at his look of surprise. “Oh, please, Charles, don’t tell me you’re still trying to deny that to the rest of the world, not after that kiss goodbye.” 

“No—” Now Charles rolled his eyes—“no, of course not, you’re right, I—I absolutely do—but again, _Azazel_?” 

“What, because his skin was red?” Raven shook her head. “Charles. I thought we were past this. My skin is _blue_. You think red made a difference? And he was gorgeous.” Now the sadness returned to her eyes, as he had known it would eventually. 

“Well, you would know better than I,” said Charles. “You certainly saw more of him than I ever did.” She cracked a smile at that, at least. 

“More importantly…” she sighed. “He… look, I went with Erik in the first place because he was the only person who’d ever treated me _normally_ when I was being natural. Even you, Charles, we grew up together and still, when I showed up blue, you jumped out of your skin. So that—that was important. But—” 

“For the record,” said Charles, “the night before Cuba, I jumped out of my skin because my little sister showed up to talk to me _naked_.” 

“Yeah, I know that now,” said Raven. “Got that once I calmed down a little. But even Erik—it was like you trying to get Hank to accept his feet, it—it’s easy for him to say, sure, you should be that, that’s beautiful, because he doesn’t know what it’s like to look different, at least not in a way that matters. Azazel, though—he looked like Satan, Charles, and he just went with it. Mutant and proud. Erik talks the talk, and it’s not all his fault, because he _can’t_ , but he doesn’t completely walk the walk. Not like Azazel did.” She looked at the floor. “He was the only one of the Brotherhood who came to find me after Dallas. To make sure I was all right. Everyone else just ran. Even Angel…” She trailed off, eyes far away. 

“And then what?” Charles asked, while he had her talking. Raven shrugged, finally looking up at him again. 

“A lot that I don’t really want to tell my big brother,” she said. “And that I kind of doubt my big brother wants to hear.” 

“Right. Not that.” Charles felt himself blushing. “Where did you go?” 

“…Germany,” said Raven, as though it was obvious. Which, in retrospect, it really was. 

“Oh. Right.” 

“And now here we are.” 

“Here we are.” 

“Are you _sure_ he knows what he’s doing?” Raven asked after a moment. “I mean—well, of course you’re sure. But are you _certain_?” 

“He knows what he risks.” So did Charles, though it hadn’t quite hit him until this moment— _I_ told _you I didn’t want to live without you, damn it_ —“And his motives—are the most admirable, I think, that they have ever been.” What was a cynic but the bitter shell of an idealist continually disappointed? Charles knew that better than anyone. And if Erik Lehnsherr could grasp at some last trawled-up shred of hope, after everything he had been through—more than that, everything he had _been_ —then— 

Perhaps this was a world, a time, where Charles Xavier’s ideals might yet turn out right. 

“If you say so.” Raven sighed. “When we get back to New York, Charles, would you mind if I stayed a while?” Long ago the request would have been shy, but this Raven tossed it out like his reply would make no difference. Even without tapping her thoughts he knew better. 

“God, no.” It was already a world where Raven came home. Anything could happen. “Stay as long as you like.” _You never have to steal again._

“I missed you,” said Raven quietly. “When I was in—all those places where I was.” Charles looked at her and smiled.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eeeeeeeee almost done! Okay. Hope you enjoyed my thinly-veiled excuse to expound on my movie-verse Raven/Azazel headcanons. 
> 
> I am sorry that I am updating this so slowly as we near the end, but it's 2 AM on what is now technically my third day of college, so yeah. That last chapter might take a while still. We'll just have to wait and see. 
> 
> As always, if there's a problem with the (fairly minimal) German in this chapter, please let me know.
> 
> And again, EDIT: THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU PetitPotato


	8. Endgame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So I say to you, come home.

  


**Westchester**

  


Charles ran a hand through his newly-shorn hair. It did feel good. Lighter. _It’ll be lighter still when it’s all_ gone _, Charles, what are you doing?_ But he didn’t regret it. The long hair, in the end, had been nothing but a weight, a reminder of old mistakes and bygone pain. A sort of albatross, if one waxed so philosophical, which he certainly wouldn’t. He wasn’t _that_ old. Not yet. 

“I’m keeping the beard,” he had insisted in the face of Raven’s arguments. 

“It makes you look old!” So perhaps he was nearing _that_ old. He would get over it. A part of him rather thought he might enjoy it. 

“It looks—professorly.” 

“Is professorly a word?” said Hank from the lab sink. Raven snorted. Charles ignored him. 

“Especially in combination with the tweed. See?” He held out his arms to demonstrate, and to see Raven look at him with fond irritation. 

“I will admit, I missed the tweed.” 

“I know.” He smoothed down the front of his jacket. “So did I.” 

  


In Germany, Kurt was well. Charles had checked on him just this morning, Raven by his side, looking in. 

“Will you ever want him to know?” Charles asked softly. His sister shrugged. 

“Maybe when he’s older,” she replied. They moved slowly up through the house, Raven’s steps noticeably shortened to keep up with him. The students were beginning to awaken; Charles could hear a few of them in the kitchen as they passed it, and as they neared the stairs Alison came running down them. She stopped short at the sight of Mystique. 

“Oh my god. You’re the shapeshifter.” Well, that was tactful. Charles sighed. Raven, though, seemed unbothered. 

“I am,” she said. 

“Mystique?” Alison tried. Charles glanced up at his sister and nearly fell out of his chair—she shook her head. 

“Call me Raven,” she said. 

“Alison Blaire.” They shook hands, and Alison ran off to breakfast, and Charles and Raven moved on, walking and rolling up to the end of the hall and the bay windows, where they stopped, looking out over the grounds. Charles traced his gaze over the fields—at every spot emerged some childhood memory, most of them quite fond. 

“So, _Raven_ —” 

“Oh, shut up, Charles.” 

“I didn’t say anything yet!” 

“You’re going to.” 

“You know you could teach if you liked. Always.” 

“Of course.” Raven sighed. “That should pretty well prevent me from running off again.” 

“No, no, not at all,” said Charles. “This isn’t about control, Raven, not anymore. You could do these young mutants a great deal of good.” 

“Me?” She laughed. “Really.” 

“What if there’s another shapeshifter?” Charles pointed out. It was always possible. Kurt and Lorna and inherited powers aside, he had known another telepath in his time, one not related to him in the slightest. “I may have experience as a teacher, Raven, and my power does give me a particular versatility in helping a wide range of gifts, but it’s always better to have a mentor who knows what they’re doing.” Raven was quiet for a long time, staring out the window. He didn’t look to see what she was thinking—he never did—but watched as her eyes swept over the fields, the trees, the lab and the bunker, the satellite dish. 

“I’ll think about it,” she finally said. “I—I think I won’t stay too long right now, Charles, another week perhaps, but—would it be all right if I came back for Thanksgiving?” She honestly didn’t know if he would say yes, Charles realized, and his heart melted. 

“God, Raven, _of course_. I always have missed you most at the holidays.” Raven looked away. 

“Me too.” The mutter was faint, but he heard it nonetheless, and smiled. His sister leaned down and kissed the top of his head. “Remember when you used to be taller than me?” Changing the subject to mock Charles, yes—that was the Raven he remembered. 

“I still _am_.” He said it as petulantly as possible, because that was how a younger Charles would have reacted. 

“Only technically.” She ruffled his hair. “Seriously, you should cut this off.” 

“All right,” said Charles, and felt her surprise at the easy acquiescence. “Let’s find Hank. He’ll do it.” 

“I could!” 

“No, sorry,” said Charles, taking his turn to gently mock her, “but I don’t think I trust a barber who’s never _actually_ had to style her own hair, let alone someone else’s.” Raven just rolled her eyes and messed up his hair still more. 

  


It was a shock to staff and students alike when, on the first day of school that September, Hank McCoy showed up to teach his classes completely covered in blue fur. A few of the elementary science students were a little frightened at first. 

They recovered. They had to—in the first week, Hank went blue every few days. Then it was every other day. By the time October came around, he had gone a full week without the serum. 

Charles could not deny his own amazement. It was a pleasant surprise; once he stopped with the serum he had spent two years nagging Hank to do the same. Then the rebuilding finished and his focus was set back on children with young, hopeful minds still moldable, and not grown men with genius marred by a deeply-ingrained self-hatred. Since, it had become clear that the only way Hank was going to get past all that was of his own accord, and now, _finally_ , he had. Slowly but surely it was becoming quite a normal occurrence in the school to see the enormous, blue, slightly feline man walking the halls in his lab coat. He was barely even met with double-takes anymore. 

Somehow, these days, seeing Hank with the full mutation, otherwise calm and normal and nicely dressed—he looked older than he ever had. Closer to Charles in age, anyway. In all technicality they weren’t even half a decade apart, and it should have mattered less and less as time went by, but the past month was the first time in those fifteen years that Hank had really seemed to possess the gravitas to suit his age. 

When Raven called—every Sunday night, now, and the world was such a bright place—in an even more unexpected development, Hank talked to her. Some nights, Charles thought, those conversations went even longer than his. At first he wondered, but then he decided to channel Hank and declare that he didn’t _want_ to know. 

The morning of October the thirteenth dawned bright and clear over Westchester. Charles left all television and radios studiously turned off. Every news station would be broadcasting the trial, and he did not need the suspense. He had papers to grade. 

At lunch this ignore-everything tactic broke down completely, spiraling into a panic attack that left the papers scattered on the floor while Charles doubled over in his wheelchair, clutching his desk, struggling to breathe. He managed to keep his shields up through it, or so he thought—when it passed, he looked up to see Hank standing in the doorway, blue and concerned. 

“God damn it.” Charles shook his head. “You didn’t—I didn’t—I’m sorry, I tried to contain it—” 

“What? Oh, you did,” said Hank. “I just—I figured I should check on you. You know. Today.” He smiled nervously. “Apparently I was right.” 

“I’m terribly sorry.” Charles breathed deep, closed his eyes, exhaled. Calm. _Serenity._ “I’m fine. No need to worry.” 

“You didn’t look fine a minute ago.” 

“Well, I am now.” He gathered up the papers that had fallen, stacking them neatly back on his desk. When he looked up again, Hank was still hovering. “Hank, _really._ I don’t need you to mother me. I am perfectly capable of handling my issues myself.” 

“All right,” said Hank, and to Charles’ immense surprise, he turned and left. At dinner that evening he was nowhere to be found; Charles didn’t see him again until after breakfast the next morning, when a large blue figure appeared in his peripheral vision to tap on the doorframe. 

_Now here you go again, you say you want your freedom_

_Well, who am I to keep you back?_

“Come.” Charles shut the turntable and set aside today’s crop of essays as Hank entered his study. “Good morning, my friend,” he said. “I am terribly sorry for yesterday. I do hope I didn’t worry you, or offend.” 

“Oh, no—it’s fine.” Hank shook his head. “I—actually, yesterday set me thinking, and today… Today I have two things to tell you.” 

“Oh?” Charles raised his eyebrows. “Well, by all means, sit down.” He gestured to a chair. Hank considered it for a moment before he shook his head. 

“I think I ought to stand,” he replied. Charles’ eyebrows inched higher. 

“If you prefer,” he said. “Two things? What’s the first?” Hank closed his eyes, inhaled sharply, then opened them again, meeting Charles’ gaze with a confidence Charles didn’t recall seeing before. 

“Charles,” he said evenly, “you’re devoted to this school. And you should be—it was your vision, and between the rough patches it has been a great one. And so I have been, too, for many years, because I respect and admire you, and agree with your convictions.” 

“Outside of those ‘rough patches’ where I was a pathetic addict in need of a caretaker, I expect,” said Charles. Hank winced. 

“Um.” He shrugged. “Anyway. I have enjoyed my time here, whether it was spent teaching or researching. But from the beginning of—um—our little adventure, back in August—I have found myself turning towards a different path. You see, the night we—um—flew to Washington, first, Raven brought up a very important point, one we’ve been discussing for the past month when she calls, and it’s something that I think you and I have both spent the past few years avoiding.” 

“And what’s that?” 

“Well.” Hank squared his massive shoulders. “The thing is, Charles, at the moment—and so it has been for quite a while—Magneto is our only real representation in the public eye. And frankly, all personal feelings aside, he’s the last mutant on earth who should be.” 

“All personal feelings aside, I agree wholeheartedly,” said Charles. He couldn’t quite keep back a slight quirk at the corner of his mouth. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” 

“You probably already know,” Hank pointed out, a smile beginning to work its way onto his blue face as well. “I never did learn to detect your probing the way Raven and Erik did. But yes, I believe I am saying just that. I’m far from essential to the school, Charles, and it’s high time mutants had a bit more moderate political voice.” 

“More moderate, yes. Just a bit.” Charles bit his lip to keep from laughing. Hank nodded. 

“Indeed,” he said formally. “So, Professor X, I—” 

“Not _that_ again, for Christ’s sake, Hank—” 

“After the new year, I’m returning to Washington,” Hank continued, heedless of Charles’ whining, “where I intend to start making our voices heard.” It wasn’t a surprise, not after the speech, but it was still a bit startling to hear it aloud. Hank. Leaving. 

“You’ll be missed,” Charles told him, when he had sorted out what to say. “You’ll be missed, Hank, but—oh, my friend, words cannot express my pride at this moment.” He sent out a dose of the feeling instead. Hank started in surprise, but after a few seconds he smiled wide. “What was the second thing?” Charles added, remembering. Hank blinked. 

“Oh,” he said. “I brought you the paper.” He held it out. It was still rolled, all the headlines on the inside. Charles froze. 

“Oh.” His mouth had gone dry. “All right. Thank you.” He took the paper from Hank’s hand, and did nothing else—he could only stare at the knot in the string that kept it closed. 

“Are you going to read it?” Hank asked. Charles looked at him. 

“Have you?” 

“I thought you ought to find out first.” 

“Oh.” But still he didn’t move. He couldn’t seem to bring himself to. 

“Schrödinger's Erik,” said Hank after a moment, breaking the tension. Charles almost smiled. His fingers found their way to the string, fumbling at the knot. 

“Schödinger’s sentence, more like,” he said. “He’s still alive either way. But until we find out, it’s the sentence that’s a question of death, or—oh.” The paper fell open. 

_Life_. It was the top headline, black and bold, and it jumped out at him immediately. _Lehnsherr Gets Life_. Charles slumped down in his chair, covering his eyes with his hand. 

“Oh, thank god,” said Hank. “Guess they decided martyrdom was _not_ the way to go.” 

“I suppose so,” said Charles faintly. But Erik wouldn’t see it like that. His heart cracked a little at the memory of what Erik had showed him—how that plastic room, deep in the ground, took away everything that made him feel like Erik—and now he was going back there forever. 

But at least he wasn’t doomed to a gas chamber. 

  


Raven didn’t call that Sunday, which surprised no one—because _of course_ the second life sentence of Erik Lehnsherr lasted less than a week, and on Monday morning the tone of the headlines was almost sardonic in declaring that Magneto had broken out of prison again. Then a week passed, and Charles was terrified, but nothing happened—no Erik anywhere in the news, no bent bullets, broken bridges, or blown-up buildings. No Erik on the front doorstep, either. 

Raven called on the twenty-first to tell them she was fine, she was sorry this was an irregular day, but she had been busy, and to carefully skate around neither confirming nor denying any involvement in the prison break. Charles sighed in relief. Then he worried. 

  


_Well did she make you cry, make you break down, shatter your illusions of love?_

_And is it over now? Do you know how to pick up the pieces and go home?_

Charles woke rather suddenly several hours before dawn, which was exceedingly unusual. He lay still—not that he had many other options—trying to pinpoint the source of the disturbance, casting his mind around until he found something off. 

It didn’t take long this time. A mind out-of-place tugged at him the instant he glanced near it. The mind was loud, the pull magnetic, and Charles sat bolt upright in bed. 

It was slow work getting downstairs, having to run on his own all the systems and gadgets Hank had put in place over the years. Once he got to the right floor Charles wheeled his way slowly down the hall, listening to the faint music that had awakened him grow louder even as the song faded out. 

As he entered the room the turntable clicked off, needle lifting and whirring away. The man in the corner, face hidden by the darkness, lifted it without visibly moving a muscle and set that side to start again. 

_Listen to the wind blow, watch the sun rise_

_Run in the shadows, damn your love, damn your lies…_

“You didn’t come for me,” he said. 

“It didn’t come to it,” Charles replied. 

“No, as it turns out.” Erik sighed. “You were… right.” He sounded almost wondering. 

“As much as I could be, in a no-win scenario.” 

“I wasn’t going to qualify it,” said Erik quietly. 

“Oh.” 

“You were _right_ , Charles.” They sat in silence for a moment. 

_And if you don’t love me now, then you’ll never love me again…_

“Any normal person, faced with his nemesis breaking into his house in the middle of the night, would fear for his life,” Charles pointed out. “Are you here to kill me, Erik?” 

“What do you think, Charles?” Even without looking into his mind, Charles could hear the smile in his voice. 

October twenty-second. Fifteen years to the day. Charles doubted very much that the date was lost on Erik—in fact, it was probably why he had waited as long as he had. _Hilarious_ , he might have said, or perhaps _ah, irony._ That Erik had always had a flair for the dramatic. That he might have thought it through a little better before he made a move to deliberately remind Charles of just how he had wound up in this wheelchair. 

Charles said none of it. Instead, all he could seem to manage was, “you came home.” 

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end! 
> 
> The Fleetwood Mac album Rumours, written and recorded during a time of intense turmoil for the band, was released in March 1977. Some of the songs on it are ALARMINGLY cherik-y or just reminiscent of the prequels in general.
> 
> Wow, this process has been really long and involved and took basically all summer and I am so never writing a long multichapter fic again.
> 
> Just kidding. I'm starting a new one right now. See you there!


End file.
